Article

Are cows more likely to lie down the longer they stand

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Abstract

Information on (changes in) standing and lying behaviour of cows can be used for oestrus detection, early diagnosis of disorders and to evaluate welfare consequences of changes in housing and management. Data sets on lying and standing behaviour were collected from cows with IceTag™ sensors fitted to the leg. Data were obtained with 10 late-pregnant indoor-housed beef cows (Exp. 1), 19 out-wintered beef cows (Exp. 2) and 44 housed lactating dairy cows that were milked three times daily (Exp. 3). During part of Exp. 1 video footage was recorded to validate the sensor records. Data were analysed with the aims of estimating objective lying and standing bout criteria and to test two hypotheses. These hypotheses were that (i) the probability of cows standing up would increase with the length of time the animal had been lying down and (ii) the probability of cows lying down would increase with the length of time the animal had been standing. A total of 10,814, 39,089 and 9405 lying episodes were recorded by the sensors in Exp. 1–3, respectively. On the basis of log–survivorship plots, frequency distributions of (log-transformed) lying episode lengths and analysis of the correspondence between recorded lying episodes and video footage of lying behaviour, a minimum lying bout criterion of 4min was indicated. Application of this criterion reduced the number of lying episodes by between 62% and 88% in the three experiments, even though this had only minor effects on total estimated lying and standing time (changes between 0.5% and 3.2%). Out-wintered beef cows tended to have fewer but longer lying bouts than the other groups and dairy cows had the shortest total lying time. (11.6, 10.5 and 10.2h/day in Exp. 1–3, respectively). The probability of cows standing up within the next 15min increased (P

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... This is achieved by first finding a canonical formulation and then solving a numerical optimization problem to obtain a universal limiting curve, above which the entropy production rates of all systems with the observed waiting time statistics must lie. We illustrate that this method outperforms the thermodynamic uncertainty relation (TUR) [8,15] on synthetic test data, and demonstrate its practical usefulness in applications to experimental data for a gene regulatory network [12], the behavioral dynamics of cows [18], and several other biological processes (Table S1 [19]). Fur-thermore, by considering a stochastic timer [20][21][22] in the limit of increasing precision, we derive an asymptotic formula relating the waiting time variance and the entropy production rate. ...
... As this distribution is non-monotonic, we can deduce the system is operating out-of-equilibrium. (c) Distribution of time cows spent lying before standing across three experiments from Ref. [18]. ...
... Recent experiments identified behavioral states of a different organism [34,35], and from dynamics on these states, it can be possible to bound the rate of entropy production [35]. By attaching sensors to cows, the authors of Ref. [18] were able to record whether the cows were standing or lying, as well as the waiting time distribution of each state [ Fig. 2(c)]. The time the cows spent lying (state A) satisfies t 2 A / t 2 A < 2, meaning we can calculate a non-zero bound on the entropy production rate. ...
Preprint
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Living systems operate far from thermal equilibrium by converting the chemical potential of ATP into mechanical work to achieve growth, replication or locomotion. Given time series observations of intra-, inter- or multicellular processes, a key challenge is to detect non-equilibrium behavior and quantify the rate of free energy consumption. Obtaining reliable bounds on energy consumption and entropy production directly from experimental data remains difficult in practice as many degrees of freedom typically are hidden to the observer, so that the accessible coarse-grained dynamics may not obviously violate detailed balance. Here, we introduce a novel method for bounding the entropy production of physical and living systems which uses only the waiting time statistics of hidden Markov processes and hence can be directly applied to experimental data. By determining a universal limiting curve, we infer entropy production bounds from experimental data for gene regulatory networks, mammalian behavioral dynamics and numerous other biological processes. Further considering the asymptotic limit of increasingly precise biological timers, we estimate the necessary entropic cost of heartbeat regulation in humans, dogs and mice.
... It was concluded that the majority of false LB recorded were bouts of short duration and, therefore, the authors recommended caution when interpreting data from these accelerometers (Rutter et al., 2014). It is worth noting, however, that a LB duration of <5 min is plausible (Tolkamp et al., 2010) with LB duration ≤1 min reported in beef cattle on hilly rangeland (Ungar et al., 2018), and, therefore, the 5-min scan sampling approach used as the gold standard may have resulted in missed LB recordings. This may have exacerbated the overestimation of LB reported, due to an underestimation of LB in the gold standard measure. ...
... A common systematic error that occurs in accelerometers is the generation of false, short lying events in the data (e.g., the accelerometer records lying behavior when the cow is standing) and can occur when the animal temporarily shifts its leg position during activities such as grooming, kicking, or grazing. These false, short lying events recorded by the accelerometer are known as false LB (O'Driscoll et al., 2008;Higginson et al., 2010;Tolkamp et al., 2010;Ungar et al., 2018). ...
... Due to the detection of false LB, a threshold for the minimum duration of a LB (LB criterion) should be applied to the dataset to ensure that the maximum number of false LB are discarded and the maximum number of true LB are retained. A range of LB criteria have been tested in validation studies reviewed (range: 6 s to 30 min); however, the LB criteria commonly recommended tends to be ≤4 min as relatively few LB records have a duration less than 4 min (Ledgerwood et al., 2010;Tolkamp et al., 2010;Mattachini et al., 2013;Kok et al., 2015;Henriksen and Munksgaard, 2019) (Appendix 5 -Supplemental Table 4). The optimum threshold will be predominantly dependent on the sampling interval; therefore, it is important that the sampling interval used and appropriate LB criteria are considered together. ...
Thesis
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There is growing interest in the use of behavior data derived from accelerometers as a potential measure of animal health, however, research determining the optimal use of these devices and the interpretation of data derived from them, is lacking, particularly in grazing systems. The aims of this thesis were to understand: 1) data management considerations that need to be taken into account when using accelerometer devices to measure behavior in a research setting; 2) environmental and other potentially-confounding variables that can influence cow behavior and, therefore, the interpretation of behavior data; 3) ‘normal’ behavior of clinically-healthy grazing dairy cows during the transition period, and; 4) changes to behavior of grazing dairy cows experiencing varying degrees of hypocalcemia and hyperketonemia. To do this, data from 4 separate parent experiments were collated to generate a database containing detailed phenotype data, including, but not limited to, measures of cow performance (e.g., milk production and composition, body weight and body condition score), cow health (e.g., energy and protein metabolites, minerals, liver enzymes, and immune markers in blood), and cow behavior (e.g., lying behavior and activity derived from triaxial accelerometers). My review of the appropriate use of leg-mounted accelerometers to monitor lying behaviors of dairy cows indicated that applying editing criteria to remove errors in lying behavior data caused by erroneous movements of the leg (e.g., scratching and kicking) can improve the accuracy of data derived from accelerometers for recording daily lying bouts (LB); however, has little to no impact on the accuracy of lying time. Lying behavior data must be edited using a suitable LB criterion where the interest is in studying both lying time and LB. My results indicated that inclement weather, parity, and physiological state are important variables that influence behavior in their own right and must be considered in subsequent analyses. Interestingly, when comparing my results with lying behaviors previously reported in housed cows, my results indicated that grazing dairy cows engage in similar lying behaviors to housed cows before and at the time of calving, while postcalving, grazing cows spend less time lying. Furthermore, grazing dairy cows displayed greater behavioral synchrony (i.e., cows engaged in the same behaviors simultaneously) compared with reports in housed cows. These postcalving differences highlight the importance of assessing behavior within the farming system of interest. My results also indicated that cows alter their behavior in response to ill health, whereby grazing dairy cows experiencing clinical hypocalcemia (without paresis) and hyperketonemia [with severe negative energy balance (NEB)] altered their behavior before, at the time of, and after disease diagnosis compared with healthy cows. My results indicated that behavioral differences between cows classified into 3 blood calcium groups [clinically-hypocalcemic (without paresis), subclinically-hypocalcemic, and normocalcemic] were transient. On the day of calving, clinically-hypocalcemic cows (without paresis), were less active, spent more time lying, and had more frequent LB compared with subclinically-hypocalcemic and normocalcemic cows; however, changes in behavior were short lived and were no longer present by 2 d postcalving. My results indicate that observed differences in behavior associated with hypocalcemia are small and may not be biologically significant as a metric to discriminate between hypocalcemic and normocalcemic cows. On the contrary, changes in behavior over time and within cow may allow differences between hypocalcemic and normocalcemic cows to be more easily discerned than using mean values of lying behavior and activity at a specific time point. My findings indicated that a relative increase in the number of steps taken within cow compared with a baseline period 2 wk precalving was positively associated with blood calcium concentrations postcalving. Further, my results indicated the behavioral differences between cows classified into 3 energy status groups [Hi–Hi = high non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA) and high β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB); Hi–Lo = high NEFA and low BHB, and; Lo–Lo = low NEFA and low BHB] occurred up to 2 wk before calving. During the 2 wk before calving, cows identified as Hi–Hi were more active, spent less time lying, and had fewer LB than the other 2 energy status groups. Interestingly, similar to the hypocalcemia work, my results indicated that a relative increase in the number of steps taken within cow during the 2 wk before calving was associated with lower odds of developing hyperketonemia with NEB; therefore, greater increases in activity before calving were associated with improved health outcomes postcalving in both studies. My results suggest that relative changes in behavior, in particular, step activity, might be an improved metric to discriminate between clinically-healthy grazing cows and cows experiencing a subclinical metabolic disease. My research provides an improved understanding of the associations between cow behavior and health, particularly for grazing dairy cows. This information provides a base for further exploring the potential for behavior and activity measures to identify cows experiencing ill health during the transition period. Future work should focus on continuing to improve our understanding of associations between behavior and disease, particularly in grazing dairy cows. Using within-cow behavior measures and determining how these data could be interpreted so that farmers could be alerted to sick animals and make actionable decisions on farm, should be the focus of future studies.
... How cows make tradeoffs in the decision to stand up or lie down within a day can provide insight into their motivation for these behaviors. Good evidence exists that the probability of a cow standing up increases with the time spent lying down in a given bout Tucker et al., 2009a;Tolkamp et al., 2010). Similarly, we would expect the reverse effect: the probability of lying down should increase the longer the cow has been standing. ...
... Similarly, we would expect the reverse effect: the probability of lying down should increase the longer the cow has been standing. Surprisingly, Tolkamp et al. (2010) found no relationship between the duration of the standing bout and the probability that the cow would lie down. However, we find several problems with this analysis. ...
... This may obscure any nonlinear relationships where both very long and very short standing bouts affected the motivation to lie down, for which some evidence does exist (e.g., Tucker et al., 2009a). In addition, the Tolkamp et al. (2010) analysis ignores the fact that some standing or lying bouts would have been affected by milking or feeding times. Consequently, we cannot conclude much about the motivation to lie down from this particular study, but the approach has value, in principle, without these methodological limitations. ...
Article
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Adequate time lying down is often considered an important aspect of dairy cow welfare. We examine what is known about cows' motivation to lie down and the consequences for health and other indicators of biological function when this behavior is thwarted. We review the environmental and animal-based factors that affect lying time in the context of animal welfare. Our objective is to review the research into the time that dairy cows spend lying down and to critically examine the evidence for the link with animal welfare. Cows can be highly motivated to lie down. They show rebound lying behavior after periods of forced standing and will sacrifice other activities, such as feeding, to lie down for an adequate amount of time. They will work, by pushing levers or weighted gates, to lie down and show possible indicators of frustration when lying behavior is thwarted. Some evidence suggests that risk of lameness is increased in environments that provide unfavorable conditions for cows to lie down and where cows are forced to stand. Lameness itself can result in longer lying times, whereas mastitis reduces it. Cow-based factors such as reproductive status, age, and milk production influence lying time, but the welfare implications of these differences are unknown. Lower lying times are reported in pasture-based systems, dry lots, and bedded packs (9 h/d) compared with tiestalls and freestalls (10 to 12 h/d) in cross-farm research. Unfavorable conditions, including too few lying stalls for the number of cows, hard or wet lying surfaces, inadequate bedding, stalls that are too small or poorly designed, heat, and rain all reduce lying time. Time constraints, such as feeding or milking, can influence lying time. However, more information is needed about the implications of mediating factors such as the effect of the standing surface (concrete, pasture, or other surfaces) and cow behavior while standing (e.g., being restrained, walking, grazing) to understand the effect of low lying times on animal welfare. Many factors contribute to the difficulty of finding a valid threshold for daily lying time to use in the assessment of animal welfare. Although higher lying times often correspond with cow comfort, and lower lying times are seen in unfavorable conditions, exceptions occur, namely when cows lie down for longer because of disease or when they spend more time standing because of estrus or parturition, or to engage in other behaviors. In conclusion, lying behavior is important to dairy cattle, but caution and a full understanding of the context and the character of the animals in question is needed before drawing firm conclusions about animal welfare from measures of lying time.
... One study in grazing cows (Umstatter et al. 2015) and two studies in which cows had access to pasture (Black & Krawczel 2016;Rice et al. 2017) determined lying time and LB; however, there was no single preferred method for managing the data. For example, Umstatter et al. (2015) discarded LB <4 min as recommended by Tolkamp et al. (2010), while others discarded LB ≤2 min, as recommended by Munksgaard et al. (2006), Endres & Barberg (2007), and Bewley et al. (2010). While most researchers removed LB ≤2 min, the justification for this editing criteria was not based on validation studies (e.g., Endres & Barberg 2007, Bewley et al. 2010 or the study did not provide a detailed description of the experimental design (e.g., Munksgaard et al. 2006). ...
... Due to these contrasting recommendations and the limitations of studies in pastured cows, we then considered validation studies undertaken in housed cows, which have more robust methodologies (e.g., Ledgerwood et al. 2010;Mattachini et al. 2013). Mattachini et al. (2013) and Tolkamp et al. (2010) both reported good correspondence between the IceTag device and continuous video observations for lying time and LB, but differed in their editing criteria, recommending the removal of LB ≤2 min and <4 min, respectively. For the IceQube device, to our knowledge, only one validation study has reported lying time and LB measures, with authors recommending the removal of LB <33 s from the original data (Kok et al. 2015). ...
... The removal of LB <33 s, ≤2 min, and <4 min eliminated 93%, 97%, and 97.5% of LB records, respectively (Table 1). Hence, short LB made up a considerable number of the LB records in the unedited IceTag data, and although we cannot be certain from our data, it is unlikely that all of these records represented true LB (Tolkamp et al. 2010). Large numbers of erroneous short LB recorded by the IceTag may be explained, in part, by its high sampling frequency resulting in the detection of rapid behaviours and minor movements such as scratching and stepping. ...
Conference Paper
Shorter, more-frequent lying bouts (LB) could be used to predict calving and as an indicator of animal discomfort and ill-health. In this technical study, we reviewed the literature to describe criteria for removing false short LB, caused by minor movements, from accelerometer data using IceRobotics technology. Using an existing dataset of grazing cows, we compared unedited with edited accelerometer data after applying three different LB thresholds (LB <33 s, ≤2 min, and <4 min were removed) within IceQube and IceTag accelerometers. Daily lying time, LB (no./d) and LB duration were derived from either IceQube or IceTag devices for 146 and 159 multiparous cows, respectively. Very-short LB were more common in IceTag than IceQube data. Applying a shorter LB criterion (<33 s) to the IceQube dataset produced minimal differences between unedited (8.8±3.6 no./d; n=64,512 lying records) and edited data (8.3±3.4 no./d; n=60,463). In contrast, we observed large differences between unedited (307±293 no./d; n=2,305,693) and edited data (8.8±4.1 no./d; n=66,139) when a longer LB criterion (≤2 min) was applied to the IceTag dataset. Removing short LB that are unlikely to represent true behaviour will improve the interpretation of lying behaviour data; however, prospective studies are needed to determine the most-suitable LB criterion.
... Validation of the sensor output is necessary, however, to ensure that recorded data accurately reflect true behaviour. LB records have been validated against the golden standard of time-consuming behavioural observations to determine a threshold that retains true and discards false records (Trénel et al., 2009;Ledgerwood et al., 2010;Tolkamp et al., 2010;Mattachini et al., 2013). In other studies, however, thresholds are not used or not underpinned by scientific validations (Endres and Barberg, 2007;Ito et al., 2010;Blackie et al., 2011;Kokin et al., 2014). ...
... IceTag sensors (IceRobotics, South Queensferry, UK), attached to one of the hind legs of a cow, have been used to record activity and lying behaviour by several research groups (Endres and Barberg, 2007;Tolkamp et al., 2010;Blackie et al., 2011;Mattachini et al., 2013). Tolkamp et al. (2010) validated IceTag LB records against continuous observations of late-pregnant beef cows. ...
... IceTag sensors (IceRobotics, South Queensferry, UK), attached to one of the hind legs of a cow, have been used to record activity and lying behaviour by several research groups (Endres and Barberg, 2007;Tolkamp et al., 2010;Blackie et al., 2011;Mattachini et al., 2013). Tolkamp et al. (2010) validated IceTag LB records against continuous observations of late-pregnant beef cows. ...
Thesis
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Farmers traditionally stop milking a cow 6 to 8 weeks before next calving. This ‘dry period’ (DP) maximises milk production in the next lactation. The resulting high milk production in early lactation, however, results in a negative energy balance and is associated with reduced health and fertility. Shortening or omitting the DP improves the energy balance in early lactation at the cost of milk production. This PhD project aimed to evaluate and integrate sustainability impacts of shortening or omitting the DP, with a focus on cow welfare, cash flows at farm level, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per unit milk. Welfare was addressed by monitoring lying and feeding behaviour of 81 cows with no DP or a 30-day DP in weeks -4 and 4 relative to calving. On average, cows with no DP had a 1 hour per day shorter lying time in week -4 than cows with a DP, but the absolute daily lying time (12.6 h) and relatively constant feeding rate suggest that welfare of cows with no DP was not impaired by milking in late gestation. Moreover, cows with no DP had a 1 hour longer lying time and a greater feed intake in week 4 of lactation, suggesting a better adaptation to the start of the next lactation. The number of meals, feed intake, and lying time of dairy cows were associated with physiological indicators of high metabolic load during this period. To compare milk yield between cows with different DP lengths, accounting for extra milk before calving and possible changes in calving interval, the ‘effective lactation yield’ measure was developed. The impact of DP length on effective lactation yields of second and greater parity cows was assessed over multiple lactations. The reduction in effective lactation yield compared with a standard DP was larger for no DP than for a short DP, and did not differ between the first and a subsequent shortening or omission of the DP, although the timing of milk yield changed. The overall impact of DP length on milk production, cash flows and GHG emissions were modelled based on production data of dairy farms that voluntarily managed cows for a short or no DP. First, introduction of no DP resulted in a dip in milk production of the herd in the second year the strategy was applied. On average over 5 years, applying a short DP reduced milk yield of the herd by 3.1%, and applying no DP reduced milk yield of the herd by 3.5%. Moreover, short and no DP reduced partial cash flows by €12 and €16 per cow per year, and increased GHG emissions per unit milk by 0.8% and 0.5%, respectively. These relatively small negative impacts of short and no DP on cash flows and GHG emissions can be offset by improved cow health and lifespan, which could result from the improved energy balance in early lactation (more pronounced for no DP than for a short DP) when these strategies are adopted. In conclusion, both shortening and omitting the DP can improve cow welfare with a small negative impact on cash flows and GHG emissions, which may be offset by improved cow health.
... Even so, most of this investigation focuses on radiation, convection and evaporation since a lactating cow remains standing while eating and being milked as well as during other activities, despite the fact that a cow's natural behavior indicates, it prefers to recline for long periods of time every day (Osterman and Redbo, 2001;Manninen et al., 2002;Veissier et al., 2004;Cook et al., 2008;Provolo and Riva, 2008;Tolkamp et al., 2010). This behavior influences the effectiveness of cooling mechanisms primarily by convection, radiation, evaporation. ...
... Achieving the present investigation's stated aims requires an analysis of heat stress as a heat and mass transfer problem. A pioneering work by Wiersma and Nelson (1967) Although all of these cooling mechanisms produce a significant overall effect, if a cow lies down, the benefits gained will be reduced, and observations have shown that a typical cow will spend up to 50% each day lying down (Tolkamp et al., 2010). ...
... Cows will often rest for up to 12h during a day, and this is considered natural behavior. Depending on the freestall conditions and dairy management, a cow will have five or more resting occasions each day (Osterman and Redbo, 2001;Manninen et al., 2002;Veissier et al., 2004;Cook et al., 2008;Provolo and Riva, 2008;Tolkamp et al., 2010). We can expect cows with comfortable bedding material to spend more time resting, and although such time is constrained since cows should stand and move during the day, resting does provide the opportunity to operate a conductive cooling system by creating an interface between the portion of the cow's skin that is in contact with the bedding. ...
Book
Full-text available
Climatic conditions inside the dairy barn do not concern dairy farmers until those conditions begin to affect productivity and, consequently, profits. As heat and humidity increase beyond the cow’s comfort levels, milk production declines, as does fertility and the welfare of the cow in general. To reinforce the cooling mechanisms currently used, this work proposes an alternative system for reducing the risk of heat stress. This innovative conductive cooling system does not depend on current weather conditions, and it does not require significant modifications when it is installed or during its operation. Also, the system circulates water that can be reused. Given that a review of the literature found very few related studies, it is suggested that each freestall be equipped with a viable prototype in the form of a waterbed able to exchange heat. Such a prototype has been simulated using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and later verified by a set of experiments designed to confirm its cooling capacity. Furthermore, this investigation sets the foundation for modeling temperature in a water supply system linked to the waterbeds. EPANET, a software program developed by the Environmental Protection Agency, simulates the hydraulic model. Its Water Quality Solver has been modified according to an analogy in the governing equation that compares mass to heat transfer and serves to simulate water temperature as the water is transported from its source to the point of delivery and then as it returns to the same source.
... Lying time variation among cows is considerable (Tolkamp et al., 2010, Vasseur et al., 2012. In a Scotland study, researchers discovered that mean lying times varied from 5.9 h to 15.3 h/d, in 48 Holstein cows on the same farm (Tolkamp et al., 2010). ...
... Lying time variation among cows is considerable (Tolkamp et al., 2010, Vasseur et al., 2012. In a Scotland study, researchers discovered that mean lying times varied from 5.9 h to 15.3 h/d, in 48 Holstein cows on the same farm (Tolkamp et al., 2010). ...
... Cow lying behavior can be used for estrus detection, diagnosis of metabolic, lameness, and other health issues, and evaluating welfare concerns with changes in housing and management (Tolkamp et al., 2010). In loose environments, like freestall housing, it can be difficult for human observers to observe the activities displayed by dairy cattle over several days (Tolkamp et al., 2010). ...
Thesis
Full-text available
The objectives of this research were to compare lying time, milk yield, rumination time, hock score, stall cleanliness, and stall temperature for 97 cows (Holsteins (n = 71), Jerseys (n = 10), and crossbreds (n = 16)) housed on Dual Chamber Cow Waterbeds™ (DCCW, Advanced Comfort Technology, Reedsburg, WI) or conventional rubber mattresses (MAT). This study was conducted at the University of Kentucky Coldstream Research Dairy Farm from January 18, 2012 to May 3, 2013. Lying times were longer (P < 0.01) for cows housed on the DCCW (10:32 ± 0:13) compared to cows housed on the MAT (9:47 ± 0:15). Milk yield was not different (P ≥ 0.05) between cows housed on the DCCW or MAT. Rumination times were greater (P = 0.03) for cows housed on MAT (6:44 ± 0:08) compared to cows housed on DCCW (6:29 ± 0:08). Hock scores were lesser (P = 0.02) for cows housed on DCCW (1.86 ± 0.03) compared to cows housed on MAT (1.97 ± 0.04). Stall cleanliness was not different (P ≥ 0.05) between the DCCW and the MAT. The DCCW stall temperature was warmer (P < 0.01) (13.29 ± 0.21 ⁰C) than the MAT (10.52 ± 0.21 ⁰C).
... Validation of the sensor output is necessary, however, to ensure that recorded data accurately reflect true behavior. Lying bout records have been validated against the gold standard of time-consuming behavioral observations to determine a threshold that retains true and discards false records (Trénel et al., 2009;Ledgerwood et al., 2010;Tolkamp et al., 2010;Mattachini et al., 2013). In other studies, however, thresholds are not used or not underpinned by scientific validations (Endres and Barberg, 2007;Ito et al., 2010;Blackie et al., 2011;Kokin et al., 2014). ...
... IceTag sensors (IceRobotics, South Queensferry, UK), attached to one of the hind legs of a cow, have been used to record activity and lying behavior by several research groups (Endres and Barberg, 2007;Tolkamp et al., 2010;Blackie et al., 2011;Mattachini et al., 2013). Tolkamp et al. (2010) validated IceTag LB records against continuous observations of late-Technical note: Validation of sensor-recorded lying bouts in lactating dairy cows using a 2-sensor approach pregnant beef cows. ...
... IceTag sensors (IceRobotics, South Queensferry, UK), attached to one of the hind legs of a cow, have been used to record activity and lying behavior by several research groups (Endres and Barberg, 2007;Tolkamp et al., 2010;Blackie et al., 2011;Mattachini et al., 2013). Tolkamp et al. (2010) validated IceTag LB records against continuous observations of late-Technical note: Validation of sensor-recorded lying bouts in lactating dairy cows using a 2-sensor approach pregnant beef cows. They transformed data about the percentage of lying and standing per minute into lying episodes per second and defined a threshold of 4 min to discard false episodes. ...
Article
Lying behavior is a relevant indicator for the evaluation of cow welfare. Lying can be recorded automatically by data loggers attached to one of the hind legs of a cow. A threshold for the duration of a lying bout (LB) record is required, however, to discard false records caused by horizontal leg movements, such as scratching. Previously determined thresholds for similar sensors ranged from 25 s to 4 min. We aimed to validate LB recorded by the IceQube sensor (with IceManager software; IceRobotics, South Queensferry, UK) and to determine a threshold to distinguish true from false LB records in lactating dairy cows. A novel method of validation, which does not require time-consuming behavioral observations, was used to generate a larger data set with potentially more incidental short LB records. Both hind legs of 28 lactating dairy cows were equipped with an IceQube sensor for a period of 6 d and used as each other's validation. Classification of LB records as true (actual LB) or false (recorded while standing) was based on 3 assumptions. First, all standing records (absence of LB records) were assumed to occur while standing. Second, false LB records due to short leg movements could not occur in both hind legs simultaneously. Third, true LB only occurred if the LB records of the paired sensors coincided. False LB records constituted 4% of the records. Based on a maximum accuracy of 0.99, a minimum duration of LB records of 33 s was determined, implying a sensitivity of 0.99 and a specificity of 0.98. Applying this threshold of 33 s hardly affected estimates of daily lying time, but improved estimates of frequency and mean duration of LB for individual cows. The importance of distinguishing short LB was demonstrated specifically for detection of calving. The 2-sensor approach, using sensor outputs on both hind legs as each other's validation, is a time-efficient method to validate LB records that can be applied to different sensors and husbandry conditions.
... En condiciones ambientales no confortables, se producen cambios metabólicos, hormonales, fisiológicos y conductuales que dan lugar a una disminución de la productividad (Herbut & Angrecka, 2014;Horky, 2014;Herbut et al., 2015). Uno de los comportamientos que son indicadores del estado fisiológico y de salud de las vacas es la actividad de locomoción y el tiempo destinado a los eventos de acostado, parado y de rumia (Tolkamp et al., 2010;Radon et al., 2014;Angrecka & Herbut, 2017). Las vacas pasan entre 40 % al 60 % por día en la posición echada (E) (Tucker et al., 2003;Endres y Barberg, 2007;Brzozowska et al., 2014) y es muy significativo para la salud que estén cómodas en esta condición. ...
... Este trabajo se centró en el análisis de las conductas que se consideran como indicadores del estado fisiológico y de salud de las vacas que son: el tiempo destinado a los eventos de echado, parado, rumia y locomoción (Tolkamp et al., 2010;Radon et al., 2014;Angrecka y Herbut, 2017). ...
... Because true short lying periods of less than a minute are uncommon when the cow is not forced to do so, it is reasonable to set a minimal duration for a lying period and correct accordingly (third step in our algorithm). The IceTag sensors with proprietary algorithm apparently suffer from the same challenges, do not (sufficiently) address this issue, and manual exclusion of short lying bouts post hoc is common when results of these sensors are used in scientific context (e.g., Hendriks et al., 2020b;Tolkamp et al., 2010). In a study with 28 lactating dairy cows, Kok et al. (2015) reported the shortest true lying bout to be 33 s long and that correcting the IceTag sensor output using 33 s as a minimum duration maximized accuracy. ...
... Because of physical constraints of how the cow can place the hind legs while lying, false standing bouts in actually lying cows are not expected and have never been observed by us when using the default parameter of triact and acceleration data with sampling frequency of ≥1 Hz. Therefore, it is no surprise that the IceTag sensors with their proprietary algorithms are also reported very reliable when it comes to short standing bouts (Tolkamp et al., 2010). ...
Article
Full-text available
Accelerometers are sensors proven to be useful to analyze the lying behavior of cows. For reasons of algorithm transparency and control, researchers often prefer to use their own data analysis scripts rather than proprietary software. We developed the triact R package that assists animal scientists in analyzing the lying behavior of cows from raw data recorded with a triaxial accelerometer (manufacturer agnostic) attached to a hind leg. In a user-friendly workflow, triact allows the determination of common measures for lying behavior including total lying duration, the number of lying bouts, and the mean duration of lying bouts. Further capabilities are the description of lying laterality and the calculation of proxies for the level of physical activity of the cow. In this publication we describe the functionality of triact and the rationales behind the implemented algorithms. The triact R package is developed as an open-source project and freely available via the CRAN repository.
... Short LB (<5 min) that do not last the duration of longer sampling intervals (e.g., ≥5 min) may provide important information about cow comfort and health (Ledgerwood et al., 2010) but are likely to be missed and the total number of LB substantially underestimated when a 5-min sampling interval is used to record LB (Mattachini et al., 2013). Therefore, the sampling interval and LB criteria commonly recommended tends to be ≤4 min to accurately detect LB (Ledgerwood et al., 2010;Tolkamp et al., 2010;Mattachini et al., 2013;Kok et al., 2015;Henriksen and Munksgaard, 2019), as relatively few LB records have a duration less than 4 min (Table A3); however, true LB durations <4 min are plausible in dairy cows (Kok et al., 2015). ...
... Although variation in behavioral measurements is inevitable, differences in experimental conditions between studies using accelerometers can create additional variation in the data and affect its distribution (Tolkamp et al., 2010). This variation can result in different outcomes and recommendations for the use of the accelerometer, which may cause confusion for researchers when deciding on an appropriate LB criterion (Bewley et al., 2017). ...
Article
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Until recently, animal behavior has been studied through close and extensive observation of individual animals and has relied on subjective assessments. Wearable technologies that allow the automation of dairy cow behavior recording currently dominate the precision dairy technology market. Wearable accelerometers provide new opportunities in animal ethology using quantitative measures of dairy cow behavior. Recent research developments indicate that quantitative measures of behavior may provide new objective on-farm measures to assist producers in predicting, diagnosing, and managing disease or injury on farms and allowing producers to monitor cow comfort and estrus behavior. These recent research developments and a large increase in the availability of wearable accelerometers have led to growing interest of both researchers and producers in this technology. This review aimed to summarize the studies that have validated lying behavior derived from accelerometers and to describe the factors that should be considered when using leg-attached accelerometers and neck-worn collars to describe lying behavior (e.g., lying time and lying bouts) in dairy cows for research purposes. Specifically, we describe accelerometer technology, including the instrument properties and methods for recording motion; the raw data output from accelerometers; and methods developed for the transformation of raw data into meaningful and interpretable information. We highlight differences in validation study outcomes for researchers to consider when developing their own experimental methodology for the use of accelerometers to record lying behaviors in dairy cows. Finally, we discuss several factors that may influence the data recorded by accelerometers and highlight gaps in the literature. We conclude that researchers using accelerometers to record lying behaviors in dairy cattle should (1) select an accelerometer device that, based on device attachment and sampling rate, is appropriate to record the behavior of interest; (2) account for cow-, farm-, and management-related factors that could affect the lying behaviors recorded; (3) determine the appropriate editing criteria for the accurate interpretation of their data; (4) support their chosen method of recording, editing, and interpreting the data by referencing an appropriately designed and accurate validation study published in the literature; and (5) report, in detail, their methodology to ensure others can decipher how the data were captured and understand potential limitations of their methodology. We recommend that standardized protocols be developed for collecting, analyzing, and reporting lying behavior data recorded using wearable accelerometers for dairy cattle.
... Experiences from users indicate good repeatability in measurements at different visits and between different evaluators, but this does not mean that farms with the best or worst welfare are classified in the right category, or in other words, the validity of the index is not satisfactory (Cited in Ekman and Sandgren, 2006). Tolkamp et al. (2010) suggest that information on (changes in) standing and lying behaviour of cows can be used for oestrus detection, early diagnosis of disorders and evaluation of welfare consequences due to change in housing and management. ...
... It was suggested that identification of lying and standing bouts may provide information on animal behaviour that may assist in early detection of health problems (Tolkamp et al., 2010). Nevertheless there are limited works studying the use of lying behaviour for health problem detection. ...
... For example, pregnant cattle were found to have 6.8 lying bouts or 10.5 hours of lying down each day. Cattle in late gestation were found to have 10 bouts and 11.6 hours lying down per day (Tolkamp et al., 2010). Jensen et al. (2005) found that approximately 3-month pregnant heifers have a strong demand for 12 to 13 hours of lying down every 24 hours. ...
... Jensen et al. (2005) found that approximately 3-month pregnant heifers have a strong demand for 12 to 13 hours of lying down every 24 hours. In the study of Tolkamp et al. (2010) between 60-90% of the non-pregnant dairy cattle was lying down during the night and 20-50% during daytime hours. ...
Technical Report
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Transport conditions for heifers, as well as for other farm animals within the EU, is restricted by EU regulations (EC Regulation 1/2005). Domestic cattle must, after 14 hours of travel, be given a rest period of at least one hour sufficient for them in particular to be given water and if necessary fed. After this rest period, they may be transported for a further 14 hours. While regulations and training aim to minimize the adverse effects of hazards during loading, transport and unloading of animals, there are, as yet, no recommendations to improve animal welfare that take the circadian rhythm into consideration. Several studies have shown that cattle have distinct diurnal patterns for lying down, eating and ruminating. This current study aimed to test if the welfare of heifers transported in commercial transports and under Cattle Cruiser conditions1 was increased if animals were allowed a 9-hour overnight stop (feeding and resting) on the vehicle compared to the common practice in which animals were rested (and fed) at least 1 hour after 14 hours of transport. The results of the study are intended as hypothesis forming and are only applicable to the Cattle Cruiser conditions under which the animals were transported in vehicles with the specifications outlined in Appendix 2. Behaviour and welfare were monitored continuously during six journeys in the period between June 2013 and June 2014. Average journey length was 1171 km (Woerden, the Netherlands to Sète, France). On each journey one vehicle followed a common practice driving and resting scheme allowing feeding after 14 hours (group A), and the other vehicle followed the longer driving schedule incorporating feeding at the onset of a 9-hour overnight stop on the vehicle (group B). Group A was scheduled to leave at 19:05 hours and to arrive the next day at 13:15 hours; group B was scheduled to leave at 09:00 hours and to arrive the next day at 13:15 hours. Welfare assessment during this transport study was focussed on patterns and duration of lying down and rumination. Each vehicle transported 35 heifers. Per vehicle 8 heifers (2 in each compartment, 4 study compartments per vehicle) were equipped with sensors to register movement (standing and lying down) and to detect eating and ruminating activity continuously. Additionally, heifers were clinically assessed before and after transport, compartment temperature and driving speed were also registered. Two days before each transport, heifers were equipped with the sensors to collect baseline recordings in the farm environment. Visual inspection of these recordings showed that there were no differences between the heifers transported in group A or B. During transportation the heifers in group B were fed in the evening around 21:00 hours, and had a rest period thereafter until approximately 06:00 hours. Results indicate that the percentage of heifers ruminating increased over this resting period reaching a maximum of 55% 6 hours after the onset of this resting period. The percentage of animals lying down reached a maximum of 35% after 7 hours. While all heifers ruminated at some stage during this 9-hour stop, 4 of the 48 heifers did not lie down during this 9-hour overnight stop. During driving, few animals were lying down (fewer than 15%), with the exception of group B where 30% of the heifers was lying down during the last few hours of the journey. Remarkably, for all 6 journeys combined, 7 heifers in group A and 1 heifer in group B did not lie down at all during the whole journey (from departure until arrival). It has been speculated why these animals did not lie down: a) animals were not feeling ‘safe’ enough to lie down (driving style), b) lack of space and c) the transportation scheme as a whole (short breaks versus longer breaks) was experienced differently for the groups. Nevertheless, although not systematically registered, it was noted that most 1 See for the Cattle Cruiser concept and specifications Appendix 2 8 | Livestock Research Report 787 animals from both groups were lying down and ruminating in the collection pens soon after unloading at the destination. No differences were observed between group A and B in percentages of animals ruminating during driving. In group A, heifers were fed between the third and last driving block, in the morning after 14 hours traveling. Group B heifers were fed before departure, and after the second driving block at the start of the 9-hour overnight stop. Group B (with the 9-hour overnight stop) spent significantly more time eating in the first two hours (F=20.56, p<0.001), showed a significant increase in percentage of animals lying down (F=6.59, p<0.05) and rumination (F=5.57, p<0.05). It is considered that several factors can contribute to this effect: feeding time, cumulative transport duration, and on-farm feeding management prior to departure. This type of field studies do inevitably involve constraints such as an inability to standardize external factors resulting in difficulties in interpretation of the results. Therefore, the results of the study should be interpreted with care and regarded as hypothetical. Accordingly, the conclusions may be laid down as follows: The results of the study did not show clear evidence that heifers transported (under Cattle Cruiser conditions) with a 9-hour overnight stop had a profound increase in welfare compared to heifers transported with an one-hour stop after 14 hours of transport. However, it was shown that the 9-hour stop overnight had important advantages for animal welfare: • After feeding, the rumination activity during the 9-hour resting period on the vehicle was similar (duration and peak) to the rumination pattern in the home environment prior to the journey. • Providing a stationary environment during the night and during several hours after feeding has a positive effect on both eating duration and rumination pattern. Attention must be paid to provide sufficient space per animal to be able to lie down during the night.
... The detailed algorithm of how the three data streams of the accelerometers were combined was not available from the manufacturer. Data from cattle using this equipment and collecting motion index data has been evaluated and reported by Tolkamp et al. (2010). The data were analyzed on the basis of 1-min intervals. ...
... The time the cows were in lying bouts were calculated from the sensor data as part of the routine output from the activity sensor software package (IceManager 2010, IceRobotics, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK). However, the presence of a high number of extremely short lying bouts (too short for a cow to lie down and get up again) were identified and dealt with according to the recommendations of Tolkamp et al. (2010); that is, the inclusion of lying bouts N 4 min only. For the data analysis dealing with the duration of lying bouts, a GLMM with a normal distribution and the link function "identity" was chosen. ...
Article
Interest in developing more flexible fencing technology to improve pasture and rangeland management is increasing. The objective of this study was to test the efficacy of a new virtual fencing product and measure impact on behavior, thus potentially allowing positive development of virtual fence systems. The Boviguard (Agrifence, Henderson Products Ltd., Gloucester, UK) invisible fence is now commercially available, consisting of cow collars, a battery-based transformer, and an induction cable laid on the ground or buried in the ground. As the Boviguard collar comes close to the induction cable, a warning sound is triggered and if the animal continues to move closer, an electrical stimulus is triggered. We tested this novel system on 10 cows wearing global positioning system (GPS) collars to pinpoint location and activity sensors to gather behavioral data. Two separate exclusion zones were created consecutively in different areas of a test field, with alternate periods of control, with no fence activity, and virtual fence activation. The system successfully prevented the animals from crossing the virtual fence line. No changes in general activity or lying behavior were found. There were significant changes in the pattern of use of the rest of the field area when the fencing system was activated. When only the unactivated cable was left on the ground in a final control period, the visual cue alone deterred animals from entering the exclusion area. The trial showed the effectiveness of a collar-based electrical stimuli system. This approach to virtual fencing could provide solutions for management systems where moving fences frequently is required, such as for strip grazing, nature conservation management of specific areas and habitats, and grazers of land where physical fences are not preferred or feasible.
... Each record provided a date, time and percentage of time spent lying and standing and the number of steps taken. The lying and standing data were summarised into episodes with the use of purposewritten FORTRAN programs ( Tolkamp et al., 2010). These episodes were calculated by assuming that a continuous series of records that showed either 100% lying or standing behaviour, were part of the same episode. ...
... When both lying and standing occurred in the same minute, it was assumed that this was a transition minute in which the behaviour during the first part of the minute was the same as that during the last part of the previous minute. Short lying episodes (those under 4 min) were deleted because these were previously verified with video footage not to correspond to real lying behaviour ( Tolkamp et al., 2010;Szyszka et al., 2012). This resulted in a sharp reduction in the number of episodes without any considerable impact on the total lying and standing times, since many deleted episodes were less than 60 s. ...
Article
We hypothesised that a range of parasite doses that cause subclinical disease would lead to similar behavioural changes in cattle. This was tested by infecting bull calves with one of four different doses of the gastrointestinal parasite Ostertagia ostertagi: 0 (control), 75,000 (L), 150,000(M) or 300,000 (H) larvae, whilst measuring aspects of their behaviour, usually encompassed by the term 'sickness behaviour'. For parasitised bulls faecal egg counts and serum pepsinogen levels were elevated from Day (D) 20, the latter being affected linearly by dose. The different doses had different effects on animal fitness: body weight gain (BWG) was reduced for treatments M and H from D23, with M animals showing a recovery after D30, whereas H bulls continued to have lower BWG. Behaviours were only affected for H animals. Average lying episode duration increased by 25% and lying and standing episode frequency decreased by 22% from around D29 when compared to uninfected controls. The number of steps taken by H animals decreased by 34% relative to the controls from D34-46. There was no significant effect on any parameters of feeding behaviour. The results suggest that, for a wide range of parasite doses, general posture, activity and feeding behaviour may be unaffected despite some effects on host fitness. However, higher doses which may lead to clinical disease result in effects that are possibly directly related to pathogen dose. The practical applications of detecting health challenges through behaviour may therefore depend on the level of infection and their pathophysiological consequences.
... Moreover, it has been a valuable indicator of heat stress in dairy cattle since the 1960s (Vasseur et al., 2012). Since that time, the THI has been employed to assess the productive and reproductive response as a function of climate differences (Hahn, Mader & Eigenberg, 2003;Ravagnolo, Misztal & Hoogenboom, 2000;Silva, Morais & Guilhermino, 2007;Tolkamp et al., 2010). The THI is a practical bioclimatic marker that reflects the sum of external forces acting on animals (temperature and humidity) and their impact on body temperature homeostasis (Silva, Morais & Guilhermino, 2007). ...
Article
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The environment in which an animal is situated can have a profound impact on its health, welfare, and productivity. This phenomenon is particularly evident in the case of dairy cattle, then, in order to quantify the impact of ambient temperature (°C) and the relative humidity (%) on dairy cattle, the temperature-humidity index (THI) is employed as a metric. This indicator enables the practical estimation of the stress imposed on cattle by ambient temperature and humidity. A seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) (4,1,0)(0,1,0) 365 model was estimated using daily data from the maximum daily THI of 4 years (2016–2019) of the Comarca Lagunera, an arid region of central-northern Mexico. The resulting model indicated that the THI of any given day in the area can be estimated based on the THI values of the previous four days. Furthermore, the data demonstrate an annual increase in the number of days the THI indicates a risk of heat stress. It is essential to continue building predictive models to develop effective strategies to mitigate the adverse effects of heat stress in dairy cattle (and other species) in the region.
... From the total lying time per day in hours, the percentage of lying time per day was calculated. Lying bouts shorter than 4 min were considered as erroneous readings and deleted with an event filter from the raw data recorded by the IceTag sensor according to the threshold determined by Tolkamp et al. (2010). ...
... Empirically, this holds for some aspects of life but not others. It has been shown that if a cow has been lying down for a long time, we can use this information to predict it will stand up soon, but the reverse is not true: knowing the time that a cow has already been standing up does not help to predict when it will lie down (Tolkamp et al., 2010), a finding that earned the researchers an IgNobel prize. In our situation, the question is: If more time has passed since a male begun his copulation with a particular female, does this indicate an increased probability that he is ready to resume his mate search soon? ...
Article
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Most models of ecological and eco‐evolutionary processes involve creating trajectories of something, be it population densities, average trait values, or environmental states, over time. This requires decision‐making regarding how to represent the flow of time in models. Most ecologists are exposed to continuous‐time models (typically in the form of ordinary differential equations) as part of their training, especially since the famous Lotka‐Volterra predator–prey dynamics are formulated this way. However, few appear sufficiently well trained to produce their own work with continuous‐time models and may lack exposure to the true versatility of available methods. Specifically, knowledge that discrete individuals can be modelled in continuous time using the Gillespie algorithm is not as widespread as it should be. I will illustrate the flexibility of continous‐time modelling methods such that researchers can make informed choices, and not resort to discretizing time as a ‘default’ without a clear biological motivation to do so. I provide three example‐based tutorials: (1) a comparison of deterministic and stochastic dynamics of the Lotka‐Volterra predator–prey model, (2) an evaluation of matelessness in a hypothetical insect population (and of selection to mate more often by either searching more efficiently or by shortening the ‘time out’ after each mating) and (3) within‐season density dependence followed by a birth pulse leading to Beverton‐Holt or Ricker dynamics depending on whether the deaths of conspecifics help reduce the mortality of others or not (compensatory mortality). I highlight properties of the exponential distribution that, while counter‐intuitive, are good to know when deriving expected lifetime reproductive success or other similar quantities. I also give guidance on how to proceed if the so‐called memorylessness assumption does not hold in a given situation, and show how continuous and discrete times can be freely mixed if the biological situation dictates this to be the preferred option. Continuous‐time models can also be empirically fitted to data, and I review briefly the insight this gives into the so‐called ‘do hares eat lynx?’ paradox that has been plaguing the interpretation of the Hudson Bay hare and lynx dataset.
... Even though, decreased lying can reduce food intake and yield, as well Munksgaard et al. (2012); Lying behaviour has been identified as an element which can be used to measure a cow's welfare status and is also often referred to when assessing cow comfort (O'Driscoll et al., 2009;Tolkamp et al., 2010). The absence of lying behaviour during some hours of this study does not mean poor animal welfare, but rather expresses its preoccupation with other behaviours, such as social behaviour. ...
... Even though, decreased lying can reduce food intake and yield, as well Munksgaard et al. (2012); Lying behaviour has been identified as an element which can be used to measure a cow's welfare status and is also often referred to when assessing cow comfort (O'Driscoll et al., 2009;Tolkamp et al., 2010). The absence of lying behaviour during some hours of this study does not mean poor animal welfare, but rather expresses its preoccupation with other behaviours, such as social behaviour. ...
... However, not only is milk yield loss observed, but there are associated changes in milk components, including protein [13], fat, solid non-fat, casein and lactose contents, milk urea, and somatic cell score [14]. Besides productive and reproductive impairments, animal well-being has also been described, such as lying time, a very important behavioral characteristic that is a key marker of dairy cows' physiological and health status [15,16]. Therefore, the cow's lying time can be used as an indicator of the cow s well-being [17]. ...
Article
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Simple Summary: The main dairy area of the country is in the arid central north of Mexico (25 • NL). It is characterized by a dry climate with high temperatures, where dairy cattle are subject to prolonged periods of heat stress (HS). Due to this, through the THI and the year's seasons, the effect of HS upon milk production, feed-to-milk efficiency, and cow comfort was evaluated in 2467 Holstein-Friesian cows between 2016 and 2019 in an intensive dairy management system. Total milk production decreased as THI increased, while milk composition also suffered changes due to HS. The percentage of cows in production and cows' lying time exhibited a visible drop from a THI of 68-71. Differences were also observed across seasons, with the highest milk production values in Winter and Spring and the lowest in Summer. In the same way, lying time differed among seasons, with a longer resting time in Winter and less time in Summer. Finally, the potential economic burden that HS caused at the producer and industry-market levels and its impact on nutrient and alimentary security at the societal level were also quantified. Abstract: The possible effect of heat stress (HS), measured with the temperature-humidity index (THI) across seasons of the year (SY) upon milk production (MP), feed-to-milk efficiency (FME), and cow comfort (CC) was assessed in Holstein-Friesian cows in northern-arid Mexico. Data from 2467 cows (2146 milking and 321 dry) were recorded across SY [spring (SP), summer (SM), autumn (AT), and winter (WN)] between 2016 and 2019 in an intensive dairy farm located in the Comarca Lagunera (25 • NL) with large fluctuations regarding ambient temperature and solar radiation. The THI was stratified into four classes: non-HS, <68; light HS, 68-71; moderate HS, 72-76; and intense HS, ≥77. The considered response variables were Milk production: both on a farm basis (totMP) and on a cow basis (cowMP); Nutritional efficiency: dry matter intake (DMI, kg); Feed conversion efficiency (FCE, kg) and energy-corrected milk (ECM, kg); Percentage of milking cows: (MC%); and Cow comfort: lying time (LT, h). Analyses of variance for unbalanced data were performed through "R". Both totMP and cowMP differed (p < 0.05) as HS increased; the largest values (i.e., 77,886 L and 35.9 L) occurred at lower THIs (i.e., <68 and 68-71) while the milk production fell (i.e., 66,584 L and 31.7 L) with the highest THIs (i.e., ≥77). Not only feed-to-milk efficiency (i.e., DMI, FCE, and ECM) but also the MC% exhibited a similar trend; a visible drop (p < 0.05) occurred from a THI of 68-71 onwards. Furthermore, the LT declined as the THI augmented, from 10.6 h at <68 to 8.5 h at ≥77. Moreover, differences (p < 0.05) also arose across seasons; TotMP, cowMP, DMI, FCE, and ECM revealed their largest (p < 0.05) values in WN and SP, halfway ones in AT, with the lowermost figures Animals 2023, 13, 1715. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13101715 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/animals Animals 2023, 13, 1715 2 of 14 in SM. In the same way, cow comfort differed (p < 0.05) among seasons, with diverse lying times (h); WT, 10.5; AT, 10.20; SP, 9.3 h; and 8.8 in SM. Finally, the potential economic burden that HS caused at the producer (USD 233.2 million) and industry-market levels (USD 311.1 M), as well as its impact upon nutrient and alimentary security at the society level (i.e., 311 M milk liters and 195,415.82 Gcal), were also quantified.
... Heat stress (HS) affects the ability of animals to thermoregulate, causing an increase in body temperature with significant while adverse implications for livestock productivity [1] with reductions in feed intake, fertility and milk production [2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. Moreover, impairments on well-being have also been described, such as resting time, which is a behavioral characteristic that indicates the physiological and health status of cows [9]. Certainly, when avoiding such adverse scenarios, not only hoof diseases but lameness are reduced, observing an enhanced feed intake while an augmented ruminal activity [10]. ...
Article
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This study characterized the environmental–climatic trends occurring in the largest dairy cattle intensive production cluster under arid land conditions in northern Mexico. The study was based on the Temperature Humidity Index (THI); it aimed to identify the number of days with THI values ≥68 as a bio-marker of heat stress (HS) and evaluate the possible HS effect upon the milk production of dairy cows. Climate data were obtained every 10 min in five farms across years (i.e., 2015–2020). THI was divided into four HS subclasses, 68–71, 72–76, 77–79, and ≥80, according to the circadian HS occurrence (i.e., 1, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24 h), and analyzed across seasons–years. Thus, a total of 1,475,319 THI across different time-scale subclasses was analyzed. The observed results supported our working hypothesis in that yearling-average periods with more than 300 d, HS was confirmed. A yearly average of 31.2 d with THI ≥ 80 with similar (p > 0.05) trends across dairy farms and a slight annual variation (p < 0.05) were also witnessed. Moreover, the highest days with THI levels ≥68 occurred in summer and autumn (p < 0.05), while the in the subclasses 68–71, 72–76, and 77–79, THI occurred in any hour-scale subclass (i.e., 1, 4, 8, and 12 h). Furthermore, a trend to observe THI-HS increases either among years or within an hour-scale basis were also observed. On average, HS engendered a reduction of up to 11.8% in milk production. These research outcomes highlight the need to identify and quantify the negative impacts that HS may generate at a productive and reproductive level in order to delineate mitigation strategies that may lessen the environmental impact upon the dairy cattle industry.
... Lying is considered to be a higher priority than eating and social contact when opportunities to perform these behaviours are restricted [45]. As a consequence, lying behaviour has been identified as an element that can be used to measure a cow's welfare status [45][46][47]. Lying behaviour has been identified as a sensitive measure of animal comfort (e.g., [48]) and to assess pain caused by several conditions in cows (e.g., [49]). Deviation from normal lying behaviour (both increase or reduction) can be indicative of pain in cows. ...
Article
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The main conditions and diseases considered painful in dairy cows are mastitis, lameness, calving (including dystocia and caesarean section) and metritis. The cattle literature reports that deviation from normal daily activity patterns (both increased and/or reduced daily lying time) can be indicative of painful conditions and diseases in cows. This narrative review discusses on how pain due to several health conditions in dairy cows modifies its activity pattern and explores if non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are capable of restoring it. Divergent outcomes may differ depending upon the painful cause, the severity and the moment, and consequently its interpretation should be properly explained. For instance, cows with clinical mastitis reduced their time lying and increased the number of lying bouts and stepping due to pain caused by the swollen udder when cows are lying. However, lame cows show longer lying times, with a lower number of lying bouts and longer and more variable lying bouts duration, as compared to non-lame cows. When the relationship between painful disorders and daily activity patterns is studied, factors such as parity, bedding type and severity of disease are important factors to take into consideration. The potential benefits of the NSAIDs treatment in painful health disorders depend upon the type of drug administered, its dosage and administration mode, and the time of administration relative to the painful health disorder. This narrative review can be used as a tool to properly interpret and grade pain in cows through behavioural activity patterns and proposes directions for future investigations.
... The sensors remained on for the experimental period and were removed during the midday milking of the last day of the preference testing period. The data were downloaded to a computer after removal of the sensor from the cow, exported to Excel as CSV files and read in Fortran (FORTRAN 77, Sun Microsystems, USA) to collate the data into bouts (Tolkamp et al., 2010). Data from the 'training period' were discounted from the analysis as the cows' behaviour had been affected by the experimenters moving them into the alternate loafing areas once per hour. ...
Article
Providing continuously-housed dairy cows with a loafing area may allow them space to express behaviours that are affected by the housing environment. The aim of this study was to investigate whether dairy cows had a preference for loafing area type and if loafing area type affected behaviour performed within it. Three groups of 12 and one group of 11 lactating cows (n=47) were housed in a cubicle shed with two nearby loafing areas 1) a concrete-floored roofed area and 2) a grassed paddock fenced to the same size as the concrete area. After 3d baseline period without access, cows were trained to access the loafing areas over 2 days. A 5d preference test followed, where cows had free access to the cubicle shed and both loafing areas from 08:45 until 12:45 and 15:30 to 18:30. Behaviour was observed via live observations (scan sampling) in the mornings and afternoons and activity sensors (IceTags) continuously recorded lying bouts 24 h/d until the end of the experiment. Results of the live observations showed that the cows were in the paddock area for more of the scans than the concrete area (P<0.01). Descriptive statistics showed cows behaving differently in the two areas, lying down more when in the paddock area and standing more when in the concrete area (lying behaviour: paddock area = 69%; concrete area = 0%). Active behaviours (loafing behaviours) such as social interactions were recorded in both loafing areas (active standing behaviour: paddock area = 8%; concrete area = 23%). The weather and ground conditions affected behaviour. In dry conditions, cows lay down in the paddock area. When the ground was saturated, the cows lay down in the cubicle shed. There was no statistical evidence of overall differences in behaviours (P=0.35) recorded during the baseline and preference testing periods. However, based on sensor data, cows had longer lying bouts over 24 h on the days when they had access to the loafing areas compared to the days when they did not (P=0.028). This suggests that cows prefer paddock loafing areas to concrete areas when lying opportunities are presented, but proportionately, more active standing or ‘loafing’ behaviours are performed in the concrete area.
... Key words: dairy cow, temperature-humidity index, heat load, lying time, lying cubicle occupancy Comprehensive knowledge and analysis of the causes of behavioral change constitute the basis for improving quality of animal husbandry and welfare for cows. One of the behavioral characteristics which is an indicator of cows' physiology and state of health is the length of their lying time Tolkamp et al., 2010). Whereby, it should be recognized that the lying time varied among cows because of animal individual differences. ...
Article
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Dairy cows show a high sensitivity to changes in barn climate, which can result in physiological and ethological responses because of the homeostatic mechanisms to regulate the body temperature under heat load. The objective of this study was to analyze the lying behavior and occupancy of lying cubicles of lactating high-yielding Holstein-Friesian cows throughout the day during three summer months and three winter months. The study was conducted in summer 2016 and in winter 2016/17 in a naturally ventilated barn in Brandenburg, Germany. The determined temperature-humidity index (THI) of the barn was calculated using the measured ambient temperature and relative humidity at eight locations inside the barn. The THI was used to define the heat load the cows were exposed to. The activity of the cows was measured with accelerometers, and a video recording was made to analyze the occupancy of the three rows of lying cubicles. The results indicated that increasing heat load led to a decrease in lying time; therefore, the daily lying time differed between summer and winter months. In addition, there were different patterns of lying behavior during the course of the day, depending on the season. A sharp decline in lying time could be observed especially in the afternoon hours during the summer. The occupancy of lying cubicles was also influenced by the heat load. The data could be helpful to enable evaluation with algorithms for early detection of heat load.
... Changes in behaviours can reflect health disorders in a herd and can be associated with lower production (Steensels et al. 2012). In particular, lying and standing behavioural patterns of dairy cows are useful to identify reproductive and health status of animals (Tolkamp et al. 2010) and are related to level of milk production (Bewley et al. 2010). Several studies of lying time in cows housed in free-stalls have reported that, on average, a typical dairy cow spends approximately 11.0 h/d lying down (Ito et al. 2014). ...
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The aim of this study was to examine the time budgets of 20 lactating primiparous Italian Holstein cows and to determine the relationships between lying and standing behaviour, milk production and Body Condition Score in the first stage of lactation. Parturition period ranged from 15 September to 31 March and in the first seven lactation days all cows were equipped with individual 3-axes acceleration and angular displacement loggers, throughout 150 days for lying and standing behaviour measuring. Body Condition Scores (BCS) were estimated weekly, while milk production (in both morning and evening milking) and humidity and temperature air data were collected daily. Average individual milk yield was 27.3 ± 6.24 kg/d and milking time was 4.95 ± 1.94 min. Individual BCS was on average 3.46 ± 0.30 and standing daily time was 13.5 ± 2.26 h/d. Primiparous cows with BCS at parturition <3.25 quite regained BCS after 20 weeks of lactation, but produced on average 2.3 kg/d (p < .001) less than the other cows. Primiparous cows with standing time <14 h/d in the first 21 days of lactation showed higher BCS than the others cows (+0.11 on average, p < .001), but did not produce more milk (+0.1 kg/d, p = .25) on average and showed smaller Linear Score (logarithm transformation of milk somatic cell count) than other cows. Primiparous cows with standing time <14 h/d had higher number of lying bouts and less minutes between two lying bouts, probably due to a higher cow activity to feeding. Multiple regression on milk production showed a low effect of standing time, but primiparous cows lost 0.34 kg/d (p < .05) for each standing hour. • HIGHLIGHTS • Primiparous cows with standing time <14 h/d in the first 21 days of lactation showed higher BCS than the others cows • Primiparous cows with standing time <14 h/d showed smaller somatic cell count • Primiparous cows lost 0.34 kg/d for each standing hour
... The majority of errors were observed when the animal was in an upright position but scored as lying by the logger. These were mainly caused by a shift of angle of the logger when animals raised their legs in a horizontal position, e.g. when scratching or grooming, in line with the findings of Tolkamp et al. (2010). Such leg movements may also record a lying bout, generating a false measurement. ...
Article
We validated the accuracy of two commercially available activity loggers for cattle in determining lying and standing durations, number of lying bouts and number of steps in growing lambs. Ten growing lambs divided into two weight classes were fitted with an IceTag on the right hind leg and an IceQube on the left hind leg. The IceTag reports activity per second, whereas the IceQube reports activity in 15-min periods. To enable comparison between loggers, IceTag data were also summarized in 15-min periods. Computed indications for the start of a lying bout of durations >10 sec and >30 sec was performed to enable filtering of lying bout data. Analyses of the lambs body posture and number of steps per second from 50 hours of video recordings were used as a gold standard to determine the accuracy of the two loggers. Two observers scored the two different groups and inter-observer reliability was consistent for standing, lying and number of lying bouts (κ = 0.99). However, the observers defined step count differently and no agreement was found (κ = -0.05; -0.11). Based on Bland-Altman comparison both loggers can be used to record standing and lying time. The positive predictive value (PPV), sensitivity and specificity of the IceTag compared to video recordings per second for standing and lying were all > 91.5%. The IceTag showed a poor PPV (< 44%) and sensitivity (< 91%) for lying bouts, whereas the IceQube showed a better PPV (< 92%) but somewhat lower sensitivity (< 88%). The performance improved with the computed indications for lying bouts, for IceTag (LB_10: PPV: 100%; sensitivity: 89%; LB_30: PPV: 100%; sensitivity: 100%) and IceQube (LB_10: PPV: 98%; sensitivity: 89%; LB_30: PPV: 100%; sensitivity: 100%)), respectively. However, based on Bland-Altman comparisons, no agreement between video recording and logger recordings could be found for step count. We conclude that both loggers are able to record standing and lying time accurately. However, the ability to record number of lying bouts is poorer for the IceTag than IceQube but increases if bouts < 30 sec is disregarded. Furthermore, none of the loggers should be used for step count recordings.
... Data were downloaded using IceManager (IceRobotics Ltd), which provided lying and standing duration per minute. Lying and standing durations were calculated as described by Tolkamp et al. (2010), and daily lying proportion (LP) was calculated by dividing lying duration by the sum of daily lying and standing durations. The last 2 d of activity data were removed from the dataset to eliminate the effect of pre-calving behavioural changes (Kok et al., 2015). ...
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The effects of high stocking density during the dry period on dairy cow physiology, behaviour and welfare were investigated. Holstein Friesian cows ( n = 48, calving over a seven month period) were dried-off 60 ± 4 d before their expected calving date, and allocated to either high (H) or low (L) stocking density groups. Cows were housed in cubicles from dry-off to 21 d before calving and then moved to straw yards until calving. In cubicle pens, H and L cows had 0.5 vs. 1.0 feed yokes/cow and 1.0 vs. 1.5 cubicles/cow, respectively, and in straw yards, 0.3 m vs. 0.6 m linear feed-face space and 6 m ²vs. 12 m ² lying space, respectively. Video observations of feeding behaviour during the 3 h after feed delivery (3 d/week) and agonistic interactions at the feed-face during peak feeding (2 d/week) were made. Daily lying proportion was measured using an accelerometer device throughout the dry period. Concentrations of faecal glucocorticoid metabolites (FGCM) at dry-off, d7 and d35 after dry-off and d21 and d7 before calving and the change in energy metabolites (glucose, NEFA, BHB) from dry-off to d7 before calving were measured. H cows were less likely to start feeding within 5 min of feed delivery and spent less time feeding compared to L cows, but they engaged in displacements more frequently and spent more time standing in the feed alley. Irrespective of the treatment groups, FGCM concentrations significantly increased from dry-off to d7 after dry-off and remained higher during the dry period. Stocking density did not affect daily lying proportion, energy metabolites during the dry period and milk yield during subsequent lactation. This study found that whilst high stocking density during the dry period increased competition at the feed-face and altered feeding behaviour, it did not affect stress responses, energy metabolism or subsequent milk yield.
... Cow averages for lying durations across farms are similar to average ranges of 65 to 112 min/bout previously reported across commercial dairy farms in Western Canada (Ito et al., 2009). Farm averages for lying bout are similar to the 7 to 10 bouts/d found on free-stalls (Ito et al., 2009) and 6.8-11.5 bouts/d on freestalls and open yard facilities (Tolkamp et al., 2010). Comparing lying durations and lying bouts from the present study to previous work indicates while farm variation exists, there is little to suggest abnormal cow lying behaviors. ...
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The objective of this study was to evaluate the welfare status of high-producing Holstein dairy cows on commercial Croatian farms. Lying behavior data was collected from 278 dairy cows across four farms with varying milking parlors and housing systems in eastern Croatia for at least 3 days. Data loggers recording at 1-min intervals recorded behaviors: lying time (min/d), lying bout duration (min/bout), lying bouts (n/d) and laterality of lying. Acceleration data was summarized into lying behaviors for each individual cow. Health scores (udder cleanliness, locomotion, and hock injuries) were also assessed. The univariate procedure was used to generate mean lying behaviors and health scores by farm with a 95% CI. Mean lying time per farm ranged from 11.7 ± 2.7 to 10.4 ± 2.7 h/d. Prevalence of lame cows ranged from 28% to 50%. Heavily soiled udders ranged from 2% to 12%. Prevalence of left hocks with minor to major swelling ranged from 50% to 100%; prevalence of right hocks with minor to major swelling ranged from 45% to 100%. In conclusion, all farms assessed have opportunities to improve overall welfare through increasing udder cleanliness and reducing hock injuries.
... The most recent National Beef Quality Audit (NBQA) provided transport time data on a subset (n = 154 loads) of cull dairy and beef cows and bulls arriving at slaughter plants nationwide, indicating that, on average, these cattle were in transit for 6.7 h, with a few loads in transit for over 24 h (5); it should be noted that this in transit duration is from their last stop prior to the slaughter plant and does not necessarily represent the entire duration of travel. Dairy cows rarely voluntarily spend this much time standing (6) and opportunities to rest in trucks are limited to impossible. Cows deprived of both the opportunity to lie down and feed for 3 h will prioritize rest over food when both options are provided again (7) and they will push, on average, 40% of their body weight in order to access a high quality lying area (8). ...
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Nearly a third of dairy cows are removed from herds annually in the United States. Our objective is to describe what is known about the process of sending a dairy cow to slaughter in the United States including our perspectives about her fitness for transport, her condition upon arrival at the slaughter plant and the decisions to transport her in the first place. This process begins when the decision is made by the farmer to remove a cow from the herd. Once a cow leaves the farm, she makes her way either directly to slaughter or goes through one or more livestock auctions or markets along the way. Cull cows can travel considerable distance to slaughter and may face a number of welfare challenges during this process. These stressors are exacerbated if the cows are compromised and not fit for transport. While all major industry stakeholders have recommendations or guidelines about fitness for transport, none are enforced rules or regulations. There is little financial disincentive for farmers to stop shipping compromised dairy cows, and, in some cases, slaughter plants are willing to take the risk on purchasing cows in this condition as those that survive the journey often generate a good margin of return. As a result, the decision to ship compromised cull cows is too common, as indicated by data about cow condition both at the farm and the slaughter plant. Compromised culled dairy cattle continue to arrive at slaughter plants and leadership within the industry is needed to tackle this welfare challenge.
... Lying bouts of less than 5 min. were eliminated as erroneous (as shown in Tolkamp et al., 2010). The amount of time spent standing/day (mins), the number of standing bouts, the average length of the standing bouts, the number of steps and the total motion index were extracted for each day. ...
Article
To increase the profitability and sustainability of beef production systems, the use of animals with high feed efficiency is preferred. Efficient animals eat less than their peers for the same or better growth. This efficiency can be measured using feed conversion ratios (FCR) and residual feed intake (RFI) parameters. However, the biological mechanisms, particularly those related to the animal's behaviour and personality, are poorly understood. An individual animal's behaviour, such as its activity levels, may contribute to efficiency. Feed intake is also a factor in efficiency, and therefore, social dominance rank may also indirectly affect efficiency through its influence on feeding behaviour. This experiment investigated the effects of dominance on feeding behaviour, as well as of dominance and activity on average daily gain (ADG), FCR and RFI in two breeds of beef cattle. The study used a 2 × 2 design with 80 cattle of two breed-types (Charolais-cross (CHx) (n = 41) and Luing (n = 39)) and two diets (a concentrate-based diet (CONC) and a mixed forage and concentrate diet (MIXED)). For each individual steer, FCR and RFI were measured over a 56-day performance test. Feed intake, patterns of feeding behaviour, activity and dominance were also measured. Feed intake was affected by dominance, with more dominant steers having significantly higher dry matter intakes (P = 0.001) and feeding rates (P = 0.006) suggesting that dominant animals had priority of access to the feeders. Steers with higher ADG had higher intakes and performed more standing bouts. Steers with better FCR values performed more standing bouts and younger animals had better FCR. For RFI there was also an interaction between breed and variation in length of the feeding events, showing that Luing steers with more consistent feed bout lengths had better RFI, with no association shown for CHx steers. There was no direct effect of dominance on ADG, FCR or RFI. However, the effect of dominance on feed intake suggests that measures of performance in any study may be affected by feeder-space allocation. The associations between standing bouts and feeding bouts with efficiency measures also suggest that individual animal behavioural characteristics influence efficiency and that overall efficiency of all animals may be improved by allowing animals to express individual patterns of behaviour.
... IceTags have been previously used to record the duration and frequency of lying, standing, and activity in cattle (e.g., Bewley et al., 2010;Tolkamp et al., 2010;Maselyne et al., 2017). Their use for detecting lying and walking has been validated in pasture-based dairy cattle in a study that reported that 95% of lying data points were within 1 percentage point of observed data and 95% of stepping data were within 3 percentage points (McGowan et al., 2007). ...
Article
In large Australian pasture-based dairy herds, it is common for the time taken to milk a herd of cows to be up to 4 h. Cows are collected from the paddock as a group, wait in turn in the dairy yard to be milked, and then return individually to the paddock or feed pad immediately after leaving the milking parlor. In such herds, we previously found a consistent milking order, resulting in some cows being regularly away from pasture for several hours per day more than others. Increased time away from pasture may affect the time budgets of cows because of decreased opportunity for grazing or lying down. Lying behavior is a high-priority behavior for cows, and the duration of lying has been used as an important measure of their welfare. We applied activity monitors for 7 d to 15 cows toward the beginning and 15 cows toward the end of the milking order in 10 dairy herds milking 500 to 730 cows as a single group to understand the effect of extra time spent in the dairy on lying behavior. Study cows typically produced 6,000 to 8,000 L in a 300-d lactation on rotary dairy platforms with 40 to 80 units, being fed 2.5 to 6 kg of grain mix in the milking parlor daily, with the rest of the diet being supplied as pasture or forage provided in the pasture or close to the exit of the dairy. Over the 10 farms, 1,948 cow-days were available for analysis. The furthest paddocks on each farm were 1.8 to 3.5 km walking distance from the dairy. A wide range of steps were taken each day, ranging from 1,705 to 15,075 (mean = 5,916). The main predictor of the number of steps was the farm on which the cows were located. Cows that spent less than an hour waiting to be milked (and would be unlikely to have their ability to lie down affected by the milking process) laid down for a mean of 9.8 h/d. Steps walked and delay in the dairy waiting to be milked were both significantly associated with lying time, but the effect was not large. A regression model accounting for the waiting time at the dairy, steps taken, cow age, and farm was used to investigate the relationship with daily lying time. For every 1,000 steps, lying time reduced by 0.49 h; however, the number of steps explained only 1% of the variation in lying time. For every hour increase in waiting time at the dairy, lying decreased by approximately 14 min, but this explained only 14% of the variation in lying. We concluded that milking time durations of 2 to 4 h, common in large Australian pasture-based dairy herds, did not significantly affect the time budget for lying of individual cows in our study herds. Whereas the effect of long milking times does not appear to be a major risk to animal welfare in terms of lying time, the effect on cow health and production warrants further investigation.
... Suitable temperature and humidity conditions are particularly important because they affect the cows' rest conditions, their behaviour, hormonal and metabolic changes, and milk production (Horky 2014;Herbut and Angrecka 2018). One of the behavioural characteristics which is an indicator of the cows' physiological and health state is the length of their lying time (Tolkamp et al. 2010). As the cows spend from 8 to 16 h per day in a lying position (Tucker et al. 2003;Endres and Barberg 2007;Radoń et al. 2014), the optimisation of their undisturbed lying time is very important for their health. ...
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Dairy cows are exposed to heat stress, the risk of which is increasing due to climate change. This could result in significant changes in the cows’ lying time behaviour. The presented study shows the relationship between heat stress determined with the use of the Temperature Humidity Index (THI) and the daily lying time of a dairy’s 40 Holstein-Friesian cows. Based on the calculated value of THI, two periods were specified, a neutral period (with a maximum daily THI value below 68) and warm period (with minimal daily THI value above 73). The obtained results were processed using analysis of the Spearman’s correlation coefficient with significance at P < 0.05. The results showed a decrease in daily total lying time between the neutral and warm periods from 11.3 to 9.4 h/d. During the warm period, the correlation between cows’ lying time and increased THI shows that the relationship is significant inversely proportional, but in the neutral period that correlation was not significant. A decrease in the percentage of the lying cows and average lying time per hour was also noticeable between the daytime and night-time in warm periods, which was 2 times less than in the neutral period.
... As described by MacKay et al. (2013), IceTags are triaxial accelerometers that function predominantly as pedometers when attached to the leg of a steer, providing the orientation of the device 16 times/s. This data was used to calculate the percentage of time that the steer was standing (Standing), a count of the number of standing bouts (nStdBout) and the number of steps (nSteps) per day using criteria presented in Tolkamp et al. (2010). The Motion Index, as an indicator of the overall activity of the steer, was calculated using the average magnitude of acceleration on each of the three axes (Kokin et al., 2014). ...
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In beef cattle, feeding behaviour and activity are associated with feed efficiency and methane (CH4) emissions. This study aimed to understand the underlying traits responsible for the contribution of cattle behaviour to individual differences in feed efficiency, performance and CH4 emissions. A total of 84 steers (530±114 kg BW) of two different breeds (crossbreed Charolais and Luing) were used. The experiment was a 2×2×3 factorial design with breed, basal diets (concentrate v. mixed) and dietary treatments (no additive, calcium nitrate or rapeseed cake) as the main factors. The individual dry matter intake (DMI; kg) was recorded daily and the BW was measured weekly over a 56-day period. Ultrasound fat depth was measured on day 56. Based on the previous data, the indexes average daily gain, food conversion and residual feed intake (RFI) were calculated. The frequency of meals, the duration per visit and the time spent feeding per day were taken as feeding behaviour measures. Daily activity was measured using the number of steps, the number of standing bouts and the time standing per day. Agonistic interactions (including the number of contacts, aggressive interactions, and displacements per day) between steers at the feeders were assessed as indicators of dominance. Temperament was assessed using the crush score test (which measures restlessness when restrained) and the flight speed on release from restraint. Statistical analysis was performed using multivariate regression models. Steers that spent more time eating showed better feed efficiency (P=0.039), which can be due to greater secretion of saliva. Feeding time was longer with the mixed diet (P
... Suitable temperature, humidity conditions, ventilation and ammonia concentration are particularly important because they affect the cows' rest conditions, their behaviour, hormonal and metabolic changes and milk production (Herbut & Angrecka 2014;Horky 2014;Herbut et al. 2015). One of the behavioural characteristics being an indicator of the cows' physiological and health state is their locomotor activity and the length of lying and standing bouts (Tolkamp et al. 2010;Rado n et al. 2014;Angrecka & Herbut 2017). Any deterioration of environmental conditions creates significant changes in the above-mentioned characteristics (De Palo et al. 2006;Adamczyk et al. 2015). ...
Article
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The presented study determining the relationship between the Temperature Humidity Index (THI) value during the summer months (June–August) and daily behaviour of 40 Holstein–Friesian dairy cows, including the length of standing, laying bouts and locomotor activity. Behaviour observations were conducted on a preferences test concerning their choice to time and place of rest with respect to time duration of THI: neutral (maximum 3 h with THI = 68), warm (time of THI > 68 occurrence lasted less than 12 h) and hot (time of THI > 68 occurrence lasted longer than 12 h). Obtained results was processed using analysis of the Spearman’s correlation coefficient with significant at p < .05. The results showed a decrease in daily total lying time between the neutral and hot periods from 9.9 to 7.8 h/d. Along with the increase in THI by 1 unit between the warm and hot periods, there was observed a decrease in total lying time by 38 min/d in the cubicles. With an increase in the THI was also observed an increase by 15 min/d in the lying cows in the manure alleys during the night-time. During the warm and hot periods, the cows’ activity showed a negative correlation with the increasing THI. Cows changed their behaviour during the summer depending on the prevailing environmental conditions. The behavioural studies on cows, without taking into account the variability of microclimate conditions, can lead to their inaccuracy and the misrepresentation of their results.
... for lying indoors vs. lying on pasture, respectively). However, the recording of behavioural activities in this study was limited to daylight hours, so lying times on pasture may have been higher, especially as the cows spent most of their time on pasture during the night, and cattle have been found to spend the majority of the night time lying (Tolkamp et al., 2010). ...
... For pigs, meal criteria between 30 s and 47 min have been used. Apart from feeding, these methods are also applicable to other clustered behaviours (Rook and Huckle, 1997) such as drinking (Clifton, 1987;Petrie and Gonyou, 1988;Musial et al., 1999) and lying down (Petrie and Gonyou, 1988;Tolkamp et al., 2010). ...
Thesis
A pig farmer aims to maximize profit whilst maintaining the health and welfare status of the animals at optimal level. This requires adequate follow-up of each individual animal to spot and treat upcoming or present health, welfare and productivity problems. Currently, this follow-up is done through visual observation of the animals. However, with the economically-driven trends towards larger farms and larger groups of pigs in one pen, this visual observation is becoming too time-consuming and difficult. Therefore, in this PhD thesis, an automated warning system for performance and welfare monitoring of individual fattening pigs is developed to support the pig farmer’s activities. The aim is to signal upcoming performance, health and welfare problems to the pig farmer. Changes in the daily feeding and drinking patterns of an individual pig are used to detect these problems. A High Frequent (HF) Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system attached to a standard feeding and drinking system used in group-housing allowed to measure this behaviour automatically. Each pig was equipped with a passive RFID tag with a unique number in its ear. These measurement systems were validated thoroughly through comparison with observations. Irregular intervals occurred between the registrations of a feeding or drinking pig. Range measurements of the RFID system revealed that changes in tag position and orientation relative to the antenna during feeding and drinking most likely caused this phenomenon. From registrations of the RFID tag at the feeder or drinker; number, duration and timing of feeding and drinking visits can be derived. However, feeding and drinking visits first had to be constructed from the raw RFID registrations. Visit criteria were found to be the optimal method to do this. Then, several variables of the feeding and drinking pattern were extracted from the RFID data and compared to the observations. Correlations between observed and RFID based feeding or drinking variables were found. This was especially the case for the duration of feeding and drinking, which was highly correlated to both the duration of the RFID based visits and the raw number of RFID registrations. In addition, also water usage could be estimated by the RFID drinking system. Four warning systems were designed to monitor changes in the feeding patterns of the individual pigs. The number of registrations per pig and the average gap between RFID based feeding visits were chosen as variables to be used in the detection algorithms. For each variable, fixed limits that were constant for all the pigs during the entire fattening period were compared to Synergistic Control (SGC) limits that were individual and time-varying. The concept of Synergistic Control allows differentiating normal variation in the pigs’ feeding and drinking behaviour, such as age-effects, from abnormal variation pointing towards problems. Because every fattening pig acts as its own reference and the limits are pig-specific when using SGC, possible problems can be signalled on an individual level. Abnormal points detected by each of the warning systems were signalled daily in the form of an ‘alert’ for each pig that crossed its individual threshold value. An extensive validation of the warning systems was performed on a group of pigs that was closely monitored on a daily basis to determine the number of true and false alerts and the number of missed problems. The best performing warning system was with Synergistic Control limits on the number of RFID registrations and the use of historical data to initialize the warning system. This led to a sensitivity of 66 %, specificity of 98 %, accuracy of 97 % and precision of 67 % for all health, welfare and productivity problems spotted by the observers. The average time till the first false alert was 82 days for individual pigs and severe problems were detected after 1.1 day on average. Further research is required to quantify the added value of an automated warning system for the farmer at different levels (e.g. health, performance, efficiency, labour, costs, welfare, sound use of antibiotics). The alerts of the warning systems were now compared to problems detected by observers. However, there is no information available yet on which problems a pig farmer would detect (and when) and more importantly, which problems are most important to detect (e.g. because they require treatment, are difficult to detect visually). Future research should also focus on increasing the performance of the warning system in terms of sensitivity and precision. The optimal variables for problem detection should still be determined, as well as the best combination of variables and warning systems. Such combinations could also include automatic monitoring of the drinking behaviour.
... Trénel et al. (2009) recommended to use filtering procedures in studying the number and duration of lying and upright periods obtained from the IceTag device as the data may contain minor movements; for example, shifts in lying position or grooming while lying. Tolkamp et al. (2010) used IceTag sensors with indicated minimum lying bout criterion of 4 min. If short 'lying' episodes (i.e. ...
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The objective of the pilot study was to evaluate the possibility of using IceTag3D™ accelerometric device for the early detection of lame cows in dairy herd. The measurements were carried out in the experimental cowshed of Estonian University of Life Sciences in the free-stall section with milking parlour. The time the cow spent lying and standing, number of lying bouts, step count and the motion index of 33 dairy cows (14 lame and 19 sound cows) was registered during 15 days period. The measurements confirmed that the lame cows stand and move less than sound animals. As the same trend was in force for older cows it was impossible to differentiate the influence of lameness and age. To clarify the inequality in activity between lame and sound rear legs both legs of lame cows were equipped with loggers (eight cows). Great difference in recordings of diseased and healthy leg lying bouts (ratio 2.47) indicates that this parameter may be one possibility to identify leg disorders. However, further investigations are needed to synchronize video- and IceTag recordings and identify threshold values.
Book
Regional information about climate risks and the impacts of climate change is vital in decision-making in a wide range of contexts. In distilling such information from multiple lines of evidence, the values and contextual knowledge of the stakeholders are vital for appropriate interpretation and an appreciation of the relevance of the information. Additionally, the knowledge of how the fitness for purpose guides the selection of the sources facilitates decision-making. This Research Topic of Frontiers in Environmental Science with the theme “Climate Change Information for Regional Impact and Risk Assessment” includes nine articles by authors from various parts of the world.
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This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between temperature (T), relative humidity (RH), and temperature and humidity index (THI), milk yield (MY), rumination time (RT), and activity (AT) of dairy cows in different parities under low temperature and high humidity (LTHH). In this study, the number of samples each day was determined by all healthy cows in the barn with parity and days in milk (DIM) within 5 and 305, respectively. The box plot method was used for screening and removing outliers of dairy cow indicators after classification according to parity and DIM. To remove the effect of DIM on MY, a bivariate regression model was used to standardize the MY in milk yield index (MYI). The best bivariate regression model based on the lowest Akaike information criterion was used to analyze the relationship between behavioral parameters, MYI, and microclimate indicators for each parity. In the barn with the microclimate at a low temperature above 0°C, high RH was negatively correlated with MYI in primiparous and multiparous cows but positively correlated with AT in primiparous and multiparous cows and RT in multiparous cows (p < 0.05), so RH was a significant factor related to MYI, RT, and AT of cows. The 2-day lagged daily average T and THI were correlated with MYI in primiparous cows (p < 0.05). The inflection point value of 71.9 between AT and RH in the multiparity as the upper limit of RH was beneficial for improving comfort and MY in all parity dairy cows. Compared with MYI and RT, AT had a higher R² with a microclimate indicator, so it could be used as a better indicator for assessing the LTHH. Comparing the R² of multiparous cows to T (R² = 0.0807) and THI (R² = 0.1247), primiparous cows had higher R² in MYI to T (R² = 0.2833) and THI (R² = 0.3008). Therefore, primiparous cows were more susceptible to T and THI. The inflection point values for MYI to T and THI were greater in primiparous cows than in multiparous cows, indicating that primiparous cows had a smaller tolerance range to T and THI than multiparous cows. Thus, parity should be considered when studying the relationship between MY, T, and THI under LTHH.
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Living systems operate far from thermal equilibrium by converting the chemical potential of ATP into mechanical work to achieve growth, replication, or locomotion. Given time series observations of intra-, inter-, or multicellular processes, a key challenge is to detect nonequilibrium behavior and quantify the rate of free energy consumption. Obtaining reliable bounds on energy consumption and entropy production directly from experimental data remains difficult in practice, as many degrees of freedom typically are hidden to the observer, so that the accessible coarse-grained dynamics may not obviously violate detailed balance. Here, we introduce a novel method for bounding the entropy production of physical and living systems which uses only the waiting time statistics of hidden Markov processes and, hence, can be directly applied to experimental data. By determining a universal limiting curve, we infer entropy production bounds from experimental data for gene regulatory networks, mammalian behavioral dynamics, and numerous other biological processes. Further considering the asymptotic limit of increasingly precise biological timers, we estimate the necessary entropic cost of heartbeat regulation in humans, dogs, and mice.
Article
As the presence of a human observer can influence the behaviour of animals, a camera based system in which the cows cannot leave the surveyed area, and that automatically detects the animals and the areas of the barn used, would be a beneficial tool to analyse dairy cattle herd activity. The aim of this study was to provide such a system and to demonstrate it in an example analysis. A group of thirty-six Holstein Friesian dairy cows housed at the Chamber of Agriculture in Futterkamp in Northern Germany were recorded with eight cameras. The barn was partitioned into rectangular areas and automated motion detection was implemented and applied to detect the areas with cow activity. For the automated motion detection high evaluation metrics were reached. Area under receiver-operating-characteristic (ROC) curve and precision-recall (PR) curve varied among the cameras from 0.85 to 0.94 (0.9 ± 0.03), respectively, 0.68 to 0.95 (0.88 ± 0.09), while accuracies and precision ranged from 0.783 to 0.88 (0.844 ± 0.033) and 0.544 to 0.938 (0.833 ±0.134). As an example, video recordings from five days in April and June 2019 were used each and compared afterwards. Areas visited more in April or June could be specified, and herd preferences in the use of lying cubicles and feeding troughs were revealed. It was found that space usage was most stable in the middle of the period between morning and afternoon milking and it became more unstable towards afternoon milking. The presented tool has the potential to visualise and evaluate dairy cows’ space usage and was developed in Python code. It is available on GitHub.
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In a system in which cows are grouped and given differential access to feeding bins with different rations, and where these groups change over time, it is important to find out how a change in the ration (and hence feeding bin) affects the cow's feeding behaviour. Monitoring the locomotion of cows can be used to predict oestrus and improve health (lameness diagnosis), but activity monitors can also be used to estimate both activity and numbers of feeding visits by cows. Ice tag activity monitors were attached to the right hind legs of ten cows. Walking, standing, lying data and health records were used to record changes before and after a change in each cow's feeding bin. Results comparing activity before and after feeding bin change revealed significant increases in motion index, number of steps taken per minute and number of lying bouts per minute (all P < 0.001). Comparing the behaviours of cows subsequently followed during the dry period showed significant differences in motion indices and number of steps taken per minute ( P < 0.001) in the dry period. The results indicate that cows are affected by feeding bin change and group change, which can lead to an increase in behaviour associated with the stress response, especially in heifers.
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The objective of this study was to test whether dairy calf daily lying durations as recorded by an automated data logger (tri-axial 4 Hz IceQube accelerometer) are equivalent to manually determined daily lying durations obtained via retrospective analysis of video recordings. This was accomplished by comparing two behavioral observation techniques (Manual Determination and Automated Determination) when applied in parallel to the same group of animals. The study comprised two stages through which (1) the significance or non-significance of differences between results from the two methodologies was established, and (2) the ability of a correction filter to potentially remove erroneous records from the sensor output data and improve equivalency was tested. Thirteen group-housed calves were studied over 96 continuous hours. The average daily lying duration for calves was 11h:37 min/calf/d (±4h:47 m) for an average of 22 ± 6 lying bouts/d. The two methodologies were shown to be equivalent with daily lying durations between methodologies differing by <1 min/calf/d. Correction filters applied to the sensor data output files removing lying bouts ≤60 s improved equivalency and reduced the number of deviating lying bouts to ≤5% of total bouts recorded. The optimal filter excluded lying bouts ≤8 s in duration. Deviations between the two methodologies were mainly due to inaccurately registered lying bouts which occurred during nested behaviors such as play, grooming/ear scratching and feeding. In summary, results obtained by use of the IceQube sensor, when coupled with a correction filter, are equivalent to manual daily lying duration observations of group-housed calves aged ∼55d and suggests an opportunity to reduce the labor requirements in collecting such data, without significant impact on data quality.
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Introduction - European animal welfare legislation (2008/119/EC) poses limitations on the current management practices of Valle d'Aosta breeders. Aim - The haematological profiles, salivary cortisol concentrations, and behavioural responses of Valdostana calves housed in either tie-stalls (TS) or multiple pens (MP) were evaluated in relation to the age at enclosure: very young calves (VYC 7-39 days) or young calves (YC 40-80 days). Materials and methods - Twenty-nine calves were divided into two age groups: VYC (12 females and two males) and YC (13 females and two males). Blood and saliva samples were collected at baseline, at 20 (T1) and at 40 days (T2) after enclosure in one of the two housing systems. Behaviour was analyzed by direct closed-circuit TV recording. Results - Salivary cortisol levels measured at 40 days were significantly higher in the VYC housed in TS than those housed in MP (P<0.01). Differences in haematological profiles were observed only in the animals that had entered indoor housing (TS or MP) at age > 40 days. The VYC housed in TS spent more time in vigilant resting, tended to spend less time sleeping, and exhibited significantly more ruminant activity. Discussion - The type of enclosure for housing calves can affect haematological profiles, cortisol concentrations, and behaviours. A multidisciplinary approach is more effective for evaluating animal welfare than assessment investigating a single parameter. Conclusion - In this study, the hypothesis that MP housing could create stressful conditions in a breed selected for fighting behaviour was not confirmed by our data. The socioeconomic implications of different housing systems need to be studied in geographical areas with natural constraints, such as mountainous regions where local breeds are frequently reared. Animal welfare data on minor local breeds can be useful for informing practices and policies for maintaining biodiversity and breeding of local breeds.
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The objective of this study was to design and validate a mathematical model to detect post-calving ketosis. The validation was conducted in four commercial dairy farms in Israel, on a total of 706 multiparous Holstein dairy cows: 203 cows clinically diagnosed with ketosis and 503 healthy cows. A logistic binary regression model was developed, where the dependent variable is categorical (healthy/diseased) and a set of explanatory variables were measured with existing commercial sensors: rumination duration, activity and milk yield of each individual cow. In a first validation step (within-farm), the model was calibrated on the database of each farm separately. Two thirds of the sick cows and an equal number of healthy cows were randomly selected for model validation. The remaining one third of the cows, which did not participate in the model validation, were used for model calibration. In order to overcome the random selection effect, this procedure was repeated 100 times. In a second (between-farms) validation step, the model was calibrated on one farm and validated on another farm. Within-farm accuracy, ranging from 74 to 79%, was higher than between-farm accuracy, ranging from 49 to 72%, in all farms. The within-farm sensitivities ranged from 78 to 90%, and specificities ranged from 71 to 74%. The between-farms sensitivities ranged from 65 to 95%. The developed model can be improved in future research, by employing other variables that can be added; or by exploring other models to achieve greater sensitivity and specificity.
Chapter
Sensors are fundamental components for making any environment intelligent. Depending on the applications, different sensors are required to implement specific objectives. This chapter will review different applications and consequently the requirements for different sensors and sensing technologies used in intelligent environment with a special emphasis on smart homes.
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Statistische Vorlesungen und Seminare sind in den Anwendungsfächern unter den Studierenden sehr unbeliebt. Häufig werden die Veranstaltungen als Frontalunterricht gehalten ohne die Mitwirkung der Studierenden. Daher sind die Studierenden der Anwendungsfächer sehr unmotiviert und verlieren schnell die Lust sicher tiefer in die statistische Materie einzuarbeiten. Dennoch wird in den Anwendungsfächern eine statistische Grundausbildung benötigt. Spätestens wenn wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse publiziert werden sollen, ist eine statistische Grundlage Voraussetzung für eine erfolgreiche Publikation. Hier werden daher verschiedene aktivierende Methoden vorgestellt um Studierenden wieder aktiv in das Lernen zu führen und Methoden vorgestellt um Studierenden die Grundlagen des wissenschaftliche Arbeiten und Publizieren näher zu bringen.
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Estimating feed intakes of individual cows in a loose-housed system is difficult and unreliable. It is known that estimating intakes from the number of bites taken at grazing is unreliable. Feeding from a total mixed ration (TMR) is likely to have fewer confounding variables. All cows were over 30 months old, of three breeds: Holstein Friesian, Estonian Red and Estonian Native. There were 30 feeding bins and 66 cows. Cows were observed over the whole 24 hour period, from 1st July to October 22nd 2011, in Märja experimental farm, of the Estonian University of Life Sciences, and data from 37 cows were collected. Measures taken included: time spent at the feed bin, number of bites taken at each visit, weight lost from the bin, and evidence of stealing. Mean time spent at each visit to the feed bin with standard error was 4.4 + 0.68 minutes. The mean number of bites per visit was 7.1 + 1.01. There was a significant correlation between the number of bites and total time cows spent feeding (p<0.001), with a regression R2 value of 79.8%. No correlation was found between the number of bites and feed removed at each visit (p=0.851) nor between the time per visit and amount of feed removed (p=0.681). Therefore, there is no evidence that either the number of bites taken per visit or the time spent at bin per visit are related to intakes. There was no effect of age. Stealing was evident and widespread.
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Better understanding of how animals regulate their intake may be gained by analysis of feeding behaviour. This is often recorded in terms of feeding events, e.g. visits to feeders, which can be clustered into meals. This enables calculation of the probability of animals starting a meal in relation to time since the last meal, which is thought to give insight into food intake regulation. Starting probabilities are often calculated with pooled data but recent work suggests that pooling may strongly affect conclusions. In this study we analysed feeding behaviour of cows to investigate how previous conclusions about feeding behaviour may have been affected by pooling. Using parameters derived from experimental data, we constructed simulation models to further explore under what circumstances pooling, either across day and night or across individuals, could affect the interpretation of starting probabilities. Data were simulated to explore the consequences of pooling as either the proportion of meals occurring during the day or the individual variation in their mean number of meals per 24 h changed. Simulation allowed us to extend the analysis of the consequences of pooling for the interpretation of starting probabilities. Analysis of experimental data, collected with 16 dairy cows, showed that they ate a mean of six meals per 24 h. Individual variation resulted in a proportional CV of the individual mean number of meals per 24 h of 0·14. Cows ate a mean proportion of 0·59 of their meals during the day. Analysis of experimental data suggested that pooling, conducted in previous studies, has probably led to a quantitative underestimation of the increase in starting probability with time since the last meal but not a qualitative misinterpretation of the direction of change in the starting probability. Simulation studies showed that pooling had no serious consequences when the mean number of meals per 24 h, or the variation about this mean, was low. However, as the number of meals per 24 h and variation increased, pooling led to conclusions that may wholly misrepresent both magnitude and direction of the change in starting probabilities calculated separately for the individuals or for day and night. This may explain why the results of some published studies seem not to agree with biological principles of food intake regulation.
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In this study we compared the lying behaviour and activity of 25 early lactation Holstein dairy cows over the first 12 weeks of lactation. The lying behaviour of the dairy cows was recorded over 4 days using IceTag™ activity monitors during weeks 1, 6 and 12 of lactation. The activity monitors measure the proportion of time dedicated to lying down, standing up and activity. Cows in week 6 spent significantly time less (p<0.05) lying and more time (p<0.05) standing up than cows in week 12. This may be attributed to more time spent feeding than cows in week 1 and 12 of lactation. The lying behaviour of cows was not different between weeks 1 and 6 or weeks 1 and 12. Cows in week 1 were significantly more active (p<0.05) than cows in week 12. Activity of cows in week 6 was not different to weeks 1 and 12 of lactation. The increased activity of cows in week 1 could be attributed to stress and the cows adapting to their new environment following calving.
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Feeding behaviour consists of feeding events, separated by non-feeding intervals. Feeding events are often clustered into bouts, which may be called meals. Grouping feeding events into meals requires the determination of a bout or meal criterion, that is, the longest interval accepted as part of a meal. Tolkamp & Kyriazakis (1999a) proposed a three-Gaussian model to estimate meal criteria. The three Gaussians each described the frequency distribution of the log(e)-transformed lengths of a population of intervals. These populations were thought to be: (1) short intervals within meals; (2) intervals within meals during which animals drink; (3) intervals between meals. This model predicted that the probability of an animal starting a meal would first increase, and then decrease with time since the last meal. This contrasts with expectations based on the satiety concept, which predicts that the probability of an animal starting a meal will increase with time since the last meal. This discrepancy is related to the symmetrical nature of the Gaussian distribution. Alternatively, the two-parameter Weibull distribution can take a skewed form and perhaps is more suitable to describe the different populations of intervals. In this study, models consisting of combinations of Gaussian and Weibull distributions were examined for their suitability to describe the observed feeding behaviour of cows. Weibulls did not improve the description of the populations of within-meal intervals, compared to Gaussians. However, the Weibull distribution was found to describe the between-meal population of intervals statistically better than the Gaussian. Additionally, this inclusion of a Weibull, as opposed to a Gaussian, resulted in predictions that were in better agreement with the satiety concept over the entire range of interval lengths observed. A model based on Gaussians to describe the within-meal populations of intervals and a Weibull to describe the population of between-meal intervals is, therefore, proposed. This model leads to biologically more satisfactory estimates of bout criteria than previous models and is likely to be applicable both across species and behaviours.
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The aims of this study were to determine how measures of feeding, drinking, and standing behavior change over the period around calving, to derive objective meal and drinking bout criteria for transition cows, and to describe the within-cow consistency of these behavioral measures. Fifteen transition dairy cows were monitored from 10 d before until 10 d after calving. Meal criteria were calculated for each cow in both the pre- and postcalving periods and varied among cows from 5.3 to 105.2 min. There was a tendency for the average number of meals per day to be higher after calving than before calving, but time spent eating declined from 87 to 62 min/d from the precalving to the postcalving period. Time spent drinking before calving averaged 5.5 min/d and increased gradually after calving to an average of 6.8 min/d. Total daily standing times remained reasonably similar over the transition period but were highest at around calving (14.4 h) and lowest during the precalving period (12.3 h). On the day of calving, there was a dramatic increase in the number of standing bouts (21.8 bouts) compared with the pre- and postcalving averages of 11.7 and 13.1 bouts, respectively. In summary, changes in feeding behavior may help account for the well-documented changes in feed intake during transition. Documented changes in standing behavior suggest that cow comfort may be particularly important during the time around calving.
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In a series of 3 experiments, we documented how sand-bedding depth and distribution changed within freestalls after new bedding was added and the effect of these changes on lying behavior. In experiment 1, we measured changes in bedding depth over a 10-d period at 43 points in 24 freestalls. Change in depth of sand was the greatest the day after new sand was added and decreased over time. Over time, the stall surface became concave, and the deepest part of the stall was at the center. Based on the results of experiment 1, we measured changes in lying behavior when groups of cows had access to freestalls with sand bedding that was 0, 3.5, 5.2, or 6.2 cm at the deepest point, below the curb, while other dimensions remained fixed. We found that daily lying time was 1.15 h shorter in stalls with the lowest levels of bedding compared with stalls filled with bedding. Indeed, for every 1-cm decrease in bedding, cows spent 11 min less time lying down during each 24-h period. In a third experiment, we imposed 4 treatments that reflected the variation in sand depth within stalls: 0, 6.2, 9.9, and 13.7 cm below the curb. Again, lying times reduced with decreasing bedding, such that cows using the stalls with the least amount of bedding (13.7 cm below curb) spent 2.33 h less time per day lying down than when housed with access to freestalls filled with sand (0 cm below curb).
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Improved housing for laying hens may start from the translation of their behavioral needs into welfare-based design parameters for laying hen houses. The objective of our research was to gain insights into the facility usage and behavioral needs of the hen over 24 h when there are no obvious restraints. Twenty ISA Brown commercial laying hens (Gallus domesticus) that were 18 wk old and not beak trimmed, were accommodated in a pen (4 x 6 m) at 19 + 2 degrees C on a light-dark cycle of 10L:14D. The pen providing nest boxes, drinkers, feeders, perches, sand, and wood shaving was designed to accommodate the hens for the experimental period. Video recordings were made for 10 d. Behavioral analyses were conducted on 5 birds for 5 d. Time spent on each behavior, log survivor analysis of events and inter-event intervals, bout analysis, diurnal pattern in events and bouts, occurrence of behavior in different segments and the corridor of the pen, and sequence analysis were performed to gain insights into the temporal and sequential structures of behavior. Hens spent 97% of the day on nest use, preening, drinking, feeding, still, walking, perching, and resting; 43% on commodity-dependent behavior; and 57% not on commodity-oriented behaviors. Behavioral events were short (around 70% event <2 min) and frequent (around 70% inter-event intervals <40s). The pen corridor was the preferred place for attack, escape, flying, resting, walking, and wing flapping. Feeding-drinking-feeding, preening-resting-preening, scratching-resting-scratching, dust bathing-resting-preening, or dust bathing-resting-wing stretching-dust bathing were the preferred sequences of behavior. Although hens interrupted ongoing behaviors and changed behaviors frequently, they nonetheless clustered behavioral events.
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The efficacy of the pedometer to predict lameness earlier than the appearance of the clinical signs in a herd of dairy cows was investigated by correlating pedometric activity (PA) with clinical cases of lameness. The computer program was set to identify cows with a reduction of 5% or more in PA compared with their own previous 10 days average; these animals were then examined for clinical lameness. At the same time, every lame cow was checked to see if and when its PA was reduced. Forty-six cows showed a reduced PA; 38 cases of lameness were identified by either a reduction in PA or clinical observation; of these, 21 lame cows (45.7%) showed a reduction in PA of 5% or more, 7 to 10 days prior to the appearance of clinical signs. This cohort comprised 55.3% of the lame cows. In 92% of the lame cows identified by PA, the decrease was above 15%.
Article
In data collected for feeding behaviour analysis, feeding events are generally separated by many very short to very long intervals during which no feeding occurs. When feeding is clustered in bouts, a meal criterion (that is the longest non-feeding interval accepted as part of a meal) must be estimated before events can be grouped into meals. Until recently, three methods that estimate quantitative meal criteria were available. These methods consist of fitting a 'broken-stick' (two straight intersecting lines, both with a negative slope) to the frequency distribution (method 1), the loge-transformed cumulative frequency distribution (the log-survivorship curve; method 2) or the loge-transformed frequency distribution (method 3) of intervals between events. Recently, new methods have been proposed that fit either two (method 4) or three (method 5) Gaussians to the frequency distribution of loge-transformed interval length (log-normal models). We compare the estimates obtained with these five methods when applied to a data set of 79575 intervals between visits to food dispensers. These were recorded with 16 lactating cows during an average period of 156·6 (s.d. 51·5) days per cow. Meal criteria were estimated as 1·9, 6·0, 7·5, 32·4 and 49·1 min by methods 1 to 5, respectively. Estimated daily number of meals ranged from 5·7 to 12·1 per cow and estimated average meal size from 4·0 to 8·4 kg. The observed probabilities of cows initiating feeding in relation to time since feeding last showed best agreement with the predictions of the log-normal models. We conclude that the first three methods do not, while log-normal models do, have an adequate biological basis for a clear interpretation of the estimated meal criteria. Log-normal models are, therefore, the most promising for estimating meal criteria in cattle and probably in other species as well.
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During 6 weeks, the oestrus behaviour of all non-pregnant cows on two dairy farms was observed for periods lasting 30 min at 2 h intervals. Cows were housed in a free stall with cubicles and a concrete slatted floor. Pedometers were used to measure the physical activity of the cows throughout the oestrous cycle. Milk progesterone levels were used for confirmation of the oestrus date.Overall oestrus behaviour was less intense than described in previous studies. In only 37% of the oestruses was a standing heat observed. The behavioural oestrus symptoms were seen more frequently during the nocturnal period. Duration and intensity of the oestrus behaviour were influenced by the number of cows in oestrus.Pedometer readings were correlated with mounting other cows, resting with the chin on other cows, and total oestrus behaviour score.Two observations of 30 min per day would result in a detection efficiency of 74% and an accuracy of 100%. The time of observation during the day was found to be very important. Observations before milking gave a lower detection rate than observations after milking and feeding.
Article
One method of splitting behaviour into bouts is to model the data as a mixture of two (or more) exponential distributions and to calculate a bout criterion from the resulting parameter estimates. The parameter estimates under a mixture model can be obtained using a maximum likelihood approach. The sample size required to obtain reasonable estimates of the parameters using this approach is investigated using simulated data, and found to depend on the ratio between the two densities of the two exponential processes and the proportion in which they are mixed. The use of likelihood ratio tests in helping to determine whether the data occur in bouts is also described and illustrated.
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Problems in using log survivor functions to split behaviour into bouts are outlined. It is usually best to choose that bout criterion which leads to the fewest within and between bout intervals being assigned to the wrong category. A way of doing this is illustrated and other possible criteria are considered. The influence of misassignment on data analysis is discussed. Where this is substantial, analysis in terms of bouts may not be useful. -from Authors
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In Ireland there is growing interest in managing dairy cows on out-wintering pads (OWPs) during the winter, as a low cost alternative to housing indoors. This study investigated feeding and lying behaviour of two breeds of dairy cow (Holstein-Friesian and Norwegian Red) at pasture (PAS) and in winter (WIN) confinement. Cows (n=36) were managed as one herd while lactating at PAS, then dried off on entering WIN on 17 November 2005 and assigned to one of the three treatments using a randomised complete block design: (1) indoor matted cubicles [IC], (2) unsheltered OWP [UP] and (3) sheltered OWP [CP] (feed system=concrete feedface). Feeding behaviour was recorded for 1×24h period during PAS and WIN using IGER grazing behaviour recorders. Standing/lying was recorded every 5min for 2×24h periods at PAS and 1×24h period during WIN using modified voltage dataloggers (Tinytag Plus, Chichester, UK). Although not compared statistically, cows spent more time feeding at PAS (530.7±69.66min/day) than in any winter confinement system (UP, IC, CP=453.9±37.36, IC=462.7±37.31 and CP=505.9±37.36min/day). In contrast, cows spent more time lying during the winter period (UP, IC, CP=11.7±0.45, IC=10.8±0.39 and CP=11.0±0.39h/day) than when at PAS (9.4h/day). Holstein-Friesian cows had a higher bite rate and fewer mastications while feeding, than Norwegian Red cows (P
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There is considerable evidence that shade is a valuable resource for cattle in summer, but less is known about the important design features of effective shade. The aim of this experiment was to investigate if lactating dairy cows have a preference for shade that offers greater protection against solar radiation. Shade was provided by wooden structures covered with shade cloth that blocked 25, 50 or 99% of solar radiation. Nine groups of Holstein–Friesian cows (27 animals in total, 3 animals/group) were exposed to three treatment combinations: pair-wise simultaneous presentation of shade cloth that blocked: (1) 50 and 99%, (2) 25 and 50%, and (3) 25 and 99% of solar radiation. Cows were exposed to each combination in a cross-over design (2d/combination). Shade use and time budgets were recorded during the hottest part of the day (10:00–17:00h). Within each group, cows were categorised as predominantly black, white, or black and white in colour (one of each coat colour/group) in order to investigate the interaction between coat colour and treatment choice. Cows preferred shade cloth that blocked greater amounts of solar radiation in two of the combinations (99% versus 25%: 72.3% time spent in the 99% option, P
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In order to quantify the relative priorities between lying, eating and social behaviour of dairy cows in different stages of lactation, responses to time constraints were investigated in two experiments. In experiment one, 48 dairy cows, half in early and half in late lactation, had free access to lying, eating and social contact in a resource pen for 23h (2×11.5), 15h (2×7.5) or 12h (2×6) a day. Rest of the day, the cows were deprived of eating, lying and social contact. In experiment two, we examined whether the time constraint on eating alone affected feed intake and eating behaviour using 32 cows kept in tie-stalls, half in early and half in late lactation. Half of the cows had free access to feed for 24h a day and the other half had access to feed for 12h a day. Reducing the time with free access to the resources reduced the time spent on all behaviours measured, but the proportion of time spent lying increased while the proportion of eating and social behaviour remained constant. Speed of feed intake was increased when the time budget was reduced; thus, the relative reduction in feed intake was less than the relative reduction in eating time. Time constraints on access to feed alone did not reduce feed intake. Stage of lactation did not affect the relative priorities between behaviours. In conclusion, lying time had higher priority than eating time and social contact in both early and late lactation, and cows compensated to some extent for a reduction in eating time by increasing the rate of feed intake.
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Sensors incorporating mercury tilt switches were used to measure lying, standing and walking behaviour of grazing cattle and sheep. The lying/standing sensor was suspended below the animal, whilst the walking sensor was fitted to the shin of the animal's foreleg. Both switches gave a digital-low output when vertical or near vertical and a digital-high output when more than 45° from vertical. The lying/standing sensor was operated when the animal lay down and the walking sensor was operated by leg movement, and also by the animal lying down. The sensor outputs were connected to digital recorders mounted on the animals.Sheep fitted with lying/standing recording equipment were observed every 5 min during daylight over 24 h. The index of concordance between the automatic and manual observations of lying/standing was 0.953.Cattle and sheep, fitted with equipment to record walking, were filmed by video camera for at least 10 min each. The number of steps counted by observers of the video recordings were compared with results from the automatic system. Mean square prediction error (MSPE) analysis of the automatic-system results showed they had an error of 7.7% for both cattle and sheep. This error was a percentage of the mean of the actual observed results.Cattle fitted with equipment to record lying/standing and walking were observed every 10 min during daylight over 24 h. The concordance between automatic and manual observations of lying/standing was 0.990 using the lying/standing sensor and 0.996 using the walking sensor. The presence or absence of walking behaviour was also noted and the concordance for the automatic system results with this was 0.96.The automatic system described provides a reliable means of recording lying, standing and walking behaviour of cattle and sheep over 24 h periods.
Article
Demand functions were used in an attempt to estimate the importance of resting in cattle. Furthermore, the sensitivity of the technique was determined by quantifying the effects of variations in the level of prior deprivation (Experiment 1) and reward duration (Experiment 2) on elasticity and intensity of the demand function. In both experiments eight heifers were housed in tether stalls where they could be deprived of lying by attaching a girth strap secured to a rafter above the animal. During a 3-h test period (10:00 to 13:00h) a panel was placed in front of each heifer and she could work by pressing this panel on Fixed Ratio (FR) schedules for a releasing mechanism to be activated allowing her to lie down (a reward). In Experiment 1 the heifers were deprived of lying twice daily (afternoon and morning) for either two periods of 3h (2×3h) or two periods of 6h (2×6h) prior to testing. The FR varied from 6 to 24 and the reward duration was 15min. In Experiment 2, heifers could lie for either 10 or 20min per reward at either of the two deprivation levels used in Experiment 1. Thus, the four treatments were (A) 2×3h of deprivation and 10min per reward, (B) 2×6h of deprivation and 10min of reward, (C) 2×6h of deprivation and 20min of reward, and (D) 2×3h of deprivation and 20min of reward. Here the FR varied from 10 to 50. The demand functions were linear in arithmetic co-ordinates, which means that the elasticity may not be constant across FR-values. In Experiment 1 the heifers earned more rewards the higher deprivation level (P
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Before meal patterns can be analysed properly, a biologically relevant meal criterion must be determined in order to group short-term feeding behaviour into meals. Existing methodologies are based on modelling of the frequency distributions of intervals between feeding events but these methods cannot be used if the proper distributions cannot be clearly identified. For such cases we developed two new methods – (1) based on the analysis of the distribution of between-meal interval lengths only and (2) based on the analysis of changes in the probability of animals starting to feed with time since the last feeding event. Both methods were developed using a data set of over 700,000 records of visits to feeders obtained with broilers (Gallus gallus) aged between 2 and 5 weeks. The two methods resulted in meal criteria estimates of 20.1 and 17.5min, respectively, which, when applied to the data set, gave statistically significant but very small differences in meal characteristics. The new methods were tested against an independent cow (Bos taurus) data set and the resultant meal criteria compared with those predicted by an existing method. The two novel methods estimated meal criteria for cows at 27.9 and 35.5min, compared with 28.9min for the existing method. Again, these differences in meal criteria resulted in only very small differences in meal characteristics. Even though meal criteria were relatively similar for birds and cows, characteristics such as average daily number of meals (10.9 and 5.9), meal size (12.5g and 7.4kg) and meal duration (7.7 and 31.4min) were very different. The analyses show that, if the appropriate distributions of intervals cannot be identified, meal criteria can still be estimated for species as diverse as mature cows and young birds by the novel methodologies developed here.
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Pain experienced by lame cattle is often masked by their instinctive stoicism, leading to delayed detection and treatment of lameness. This paper investigates the usefulness of posture scoring during locomotion and the evaluation of daily activity levels as indicators of pain and discomfort resulting from lameness in dairy cattle. In this study, 345 lactating cattle were observed over a seven-month winter housing period. The posture of each cow was scored twice weekly using a subjective five-point numerical rating scale. Daily activity levels were measured objectively using pedometers. The effect of lameness on behaviour was addressed. Increased posture scores were associated with the presence of foot lesions (P < 0.001) and with reduced daily activity levels (P < 0.001). In comparison to sound cows, lame cows showed lower daily activity levels (P < 0.001). These results improve understanding of pain-related behaviours in cattle, and such an approach may assist future development of welfare assessment systems.
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The economic importance of traits like longevity, health and reproduction has increased compared to milk yield in dairy cows. Effective oestrus detection is important for improved reproduction. Commonly, oestrus detection is performed by visual observation, but this is particularly difficult on large dairy farms because of short observation periods during feeding and milking. As a result of technical progress in monitoring cows using computers, automatic oestrus detection has become possible. In many studies different traits have been analysed for utilisation in automatic oestrus detection. The best results were found for detection using pedometers. Results of oestrus detection varied depending on the used threshold value, the number of cows, housing and treatment of cows and the utilised method of time series analysis. The detection rate of most investigations is sufficiently high at 80–90%. Error rates between 17 and 55% and specificities between 96 and 98% indicate a large number of false positive oestrus warnings. The main problem of automatic oestrus detection is to reduce the false positive alerts. In recent years several authors have combined different traits with the objective of improving detection rates. Best multivariate analyses results were found for combinations with activity. Further research should be performed using data from a commercial dairy farm. A comparison of different time series methods and multivariate analysis of traits would be useful.
Article
When considering splitting behaviour into bouts, it is best to display the data in log frequency rather than in log survivorship plots. While the latter has the advantage of simplicity, the former has the advantage that the data points are independent of each other, so that a non-linear curve-fitting procedure, such as NLIN in SAS, can be applied. Traditional analysis of variance can then be used to decide whether the behavioural events are split into bouts, and least-squares estimates and standard errors can be calculated for each parameter of the fitted model. These estimates can be used in Slater & Lester's (1982 Behaviour, 79, 153–161) formula to calculate the best criterion interval to use in splitting behaviour into bouts. Average bout length and number of bouts are, however, best estimated directly from the model's parameters.
Article
Objective methods are required to assess the welfare of livestock in different environments. Two experiments were conducted to determine comparative indicators of welfare in the two most common loose-housing systems for dairy cows, strawyards and cubicles. Experiment I examined the animal responses to the two housing systems with 16 high- and 16 low-yielding Holstein Friesian cows in a changeover design over two, 4-week periods. Experiment II was carried out over 17 weeks to assess the longer-term responses to the two systems with 24 Holstein Friesian cows. In experiment I cows in the strawyard system had a significantly greater lying time, ruminating time and synchronisation of lying behaviour than the cubicle system. The cows were significantly cleaner in the cubicle system but there were no significant differences between systems in milk production, cell count or locomotion score. High yield cows had a shorter lying time but longer feeding time than low yield cows. The cows of different milk yield level responded similarly to the housing systems, indicating that cows of high milk yield do not require different housing systems from low yield cows. In experiment II there were no significant differences between housing systems in lying, ruminating or synchronisation of lying behaviour. Milk yields were significantly lower in the strawyard than in the cubicle system due to a significantly higher incidence of clinical mastitis. Cell-counts were significantly lower and cows were significantly cleaner in cubicles. There were no significant effects of housing system on hoof dimensions, locomotion score or clinical lameness. It was concluded that total lying time, lying synchrony, milk cell count and locomotion score are potential indicators for the assessment of dairy cow welfare in different housing environments.
Article
Short-term feeding behavior of pigs has been analyzed using random process models and log-normal models. Both were successful despite very different underlying assumptions relating to the theory of control. Feeder visits of growing pigs, housed individually from 17 to 52 kg live weight, were recorded electronically over a continuous period of 35 days. For the combined data, intervals between visits to the feeder greater than 30 min could be described well by the negative exponential model. The starting probability of a visit was constant at around 0.3, suggesting randomness. Disaggregating the data for individual pigs or for individual weeks did not change this conclusion. Intervals in the day were of a different nature to those at night, and disaggregation of the data into these two periods revealed that the negative exponential model was not satisfactory for either period. The starting probability for both periods increased with time since the last visit. This is consistent with the idea of satiety. Therefore, the apparent randomness in the data pooled across the day and night is an artefact caused by pooling itself, and is not in conflict with the satiety concept. The implications of data handling are discussed with reference to studies of the physiological control of food intake.
Article
In a herd of 20 cows in a cubicle house, lying behaviour was prevented for 3 h each morning by enclosing the animals on the slatted floor of the feeding area. Lying time of cows was recorded during the 10 h following deprivation. The 3 h of lying deprivation resulted in a recovery rate of almost 50% within the observation period. When cows were also deprived of food during the lying-deprivation period, the recovery rate of lying did not alter. However, when feeding alone was prevented, the increased feeding tendency did decrease lying time in the subsequent hour. It is concluded that cows aim to achieve a rather fixed amount of lying, and that their well-being must seriously be impaired when lying time is restricted for several hours.
Article
The objectives of the current study were 1) to validate the IceTag (http://www.icerobotics.com) automatic recording device for measuring lying, standing, and moving behavior in dairy calves, and 2) to improve the information yield from this device by applying a filtering procedure allowing for the detection of lying versus upright. The IceTag device provides measures of intensity (I) of lying, standing, and activity measured as percent lying, percent standing, and percent active, but does not directly measure lying, standing, and moving behavior because body movements occurring while lying (e.g., shifts in lying position) and while upright (e.g., grooming) are recorded as activity. Therefore, the following 3-step procedure was applied. First, thresholds for I were determined by choosing the cutoff that maximized the sum of sensitivity (Se) and specificity (Sp). Second, a lying period criterion (LPC) was established empirically, and IceTag data were filtered according to the LPC, providing information on the posture of the animal as lying versus being upright. Third, a new threshold of I was estimated for moving activity conditional on the animal being upright. IceTag recordings from 9 calves were compared with video recordings during a 12-h period and analyzed using 2 x 2 contingency tables. Data from the first 4 calves were used to determine an LPC, whereas the remaining 5 calves served for validation of the procedure. An optimal LPC was found by modeling the deviance between IceTag and video recordings as a function of the LPC and choosing the LPC threshold that minimized the deviance. The IceTag device was found to accurately measure the high-prevalence behaviors (lying and standing; Se+Sp >1.90) and less accurately measure the low-prevalence behavior (moving; Se+Sp = 1.39). Application of the 3-step procedure using an optimal LPC estimate of 24.8 s resulted in an improved description of calf behavior, yielding a valid representation of the number and duration of lying and upright periods (Se+Sp = 2.00) within a precision of 0 to 49 s (95% confidence interval). In group-housed dairy calves, valid measures of the number and duration of lying and upright periods may be obtained from the IceTag device when applying the presented filtering procedure to the data. Measures regarding locomotion, on the other hand, should be used with caution.
Article
Animal behaviour is frequently displayed in bouts. Bout analysis aims at finding a bout criterion, i.e. that time between events that separates intervals within, from intervals between, bouts. Methods used for quantitative bout analysis are log-supervivorship and log-frequency analysis. Both models assume that the probability of the start of an event (or a bout) is independent of the time since the last event (or bout) and that, therefore, events as well as bouts occur according to Poisson processes, i.e. purely at random. The frequencies of intervals within, as well as between, bouts are then distributed as negative exponentials. These models are also widely applied in feeding behaviour analysis, where bouts can be meals. However, the satiety concept predicts that after terminating a meal, the animal's feeding motivation will be low. The probability of the animal initiating the next meal is expected to increase with time since the last meal and, therefore, meals will not likely be randomly distributed. A negative exponential is then not the most appropriate model to describe the frequency distribution of intervals between meals. Results of an experiment in which feeding behaviour of 16 cows was recorded continuously for 30 days were used to test the suitability of existing bout analysis techniques. It is concluded that these techniques are inadequate for the description of the observed interval distributions. A new model is proposed that takes account of the observed "shortage" of short intervals between meals. In contrast to existing models, that describe log-transformed frequency distributions of interval lengths, the proposed model describes frequency distributions of log-transformed interval lengths. Compared with existing models, this log-normal model is in better agreement with the biological phenomenon of satiety, it gave a better fit to the observed interval distribution and led to a more meaningful meal criterion.Copyright 1998 Academic Press Limited
Article
Analysis of behaviour that is displayed in bouts depends crucially on quantitative estimates of bout criteria, that is, the lengths of the shortest intervals between bouts. Current methods estimate bout criteria by modelling the log-transformed (cumulative) frequency distributions of intervals between events. For analysis of feeding behaviour, these models will not result in biologically meaningful quantitative estimates (Tolkamp et al. 1998, Journal of Theoretical Biology194, 235-250). We proposed a method that models the frequency distribution of log-transformed interval lengths instead. Applying this method to a single data set showed that the log-transformed lengths of intervals between feeding events were distributed as two Gaussians. Here we test this model using a data set of 35 171 intervals between feeding that was obtained during an experiment with 38 cows in three dietary treatment groups. No meaningful bout criterion could be obtained for some individuals, which casts doubt on the general validity of the proposed model. Addition of a third log-normal improved the fit of the model and we hypothesized that this third population represents intervals including drinking. In a second experiment, we found the measurements to be consistent with this hypothesis. We obtained meaningful meal criteria for all individuals by fitting either a double, or a triple, log-normal model to the frequency distributions of the lengths of intervals between feeding. These log-normal models appear to be not only more biologically meaningful than log (cumulative) frequency models but also far more flexible. Copyright 1999 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
Article
It is well known that lameness in cattle has a multifactorial causation, however it is still not clear why some individuals are more susceptible to foot lesions in the same environment. Behaviour is thought to play an important role. The aim of this study was to assess the relationships between social and individual behaviour and the incidence of lameness in three dairy herds. Low-ranking cows spent less time lying and more time standing still and standing half in the cubicles than middle- and high-ranking cows. As time spent standing half in the cubicle increased, the number of soft tissue lesions increased and as total time standing increased the number of cases of lameness increased. The survival rate to lameness for low-ranking cows was significantly lower than for middle- or high-ranking individuals.
Article
The objective of this study was to investigate if cows milked twice per day have more difficulty lying down and getting up and spend less time lying than cows milked three times per day. Seventeen cows of the Swedish Red and White Cattle Breed were studied, seven of which were milked twice daily (2M) and ten were milked three times (3M) daily. They were kept in individual cubicles, that were closed in the rear end with a rope. They had free access to a mixture of silage, hay and concentrate. The individual cows were video-recorded for 24h every fourth week, starting four weeks after calving for four times. The 2M cows stood significantly longer, 128.11min, than the 3M cows, 64.88min, (P<0.01) during the 4h before morning milking. The 2M cows also had a tendency for longer duration of standing rumination (P=0.059) as well as significantly more bouts of standing rumination (P<0.01) during these hours than the 3M cows. The cows in the 3M group spent less time on the getting up movement (P<0.05) during the 4h before morning milking. The distribution of the lying bouts during these 4h differed significantly between the groups, where the 3M cows had fewer lying bouts shorter than 15min and more lying bouts longer than 90min. The results indicate that milking three times a day contributes to increased comfort in high-producing dairy cows.
Article
The objective of our study was to evaluate how the amount of sawdust bedding on mattresses affects dairy cattle behavior and preferences. Eleven nonlactating, multiparous cows were housed individually in pens with access to 3 free stalls. Each stall was fitted with a geotextile mattress covered with either 0, 1, or 7.5 kg of kiln-dried sawdust. The experiment began with 7 d of acclimatization to all 3 stalls. Cows were then allowed access to only 1 of the 3 stalls at a time, each for 3 d (restriction phase). At the end of this restriction phase, cows were allowed free access to all 3 stalls for 3 d (free-choice phase). Time spent lying and the number of lying bouts increased significantly with the amount of bedding, from 12.3 +/- 0.53 h lying and 8.5 +/- 0.62 bouts per 24 h on bare mattresses to 13.8 +/- 0.53 h lying and 10.0 +/- 0.62 bouts per 24 h on mattresses with 7.5 kg of sawdust. In addition, the animals spent less time standing with only the front hooves in the stalls when more sawdust was present. When allowed free access to all 3 options, all 11 animals spent a majority of their time lying and standing in the 7.5-kg option. In conclusion, cows preferred mattresses bedded with 7.5 kg of sawdust, on which they spent more time lying down and less time standing with only the front hooves in stalls. These results indicate that more sawdust bedding improves cow comfort in stalls with geotextile mattresses.
Energy and protein requirements of ruminants. An advisory manual prepared by the AFRC Technical Committee on responses to nutrients
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